


Pruébame a ti

by obbel



Category: Latin American Celebrities RPF, Reggaetón Music RPF
Genre: Anthology, Fictober, Fictober 2020, M/M, Reggaetón RPF - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:28:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 23,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obbel/pseuds/obbel
Summary: J Balvin and Maluma over and over and over again for Fictober 2020.I’m sorry/you’re welcome.
Relationships: J Balvin/Maluma
Comments: 17
Kudos: 14





	1. “no, come back!”

**Author's Note:**

> So there's a lot going on here since I wrote thirty-one stories in twenty-seven days (I started four days late). Here's an index of sorts because I'm oh so considerate.
> 
> If you're here for porn, it's [chapter seventeen (law enforcement AU)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817379/chapters/66092875) and[ chapter twenty-seven (straight up PWP).](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817379/chapters/66540016)
> 
> If you'd like to read some longer stories with actual plot (ish), they're [chapters eight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817379/chapters/65638087) and [twenty-three (vampire AU in two parts),](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817379/chapters/66350563) [ chapter thirteen (college AU),](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817379/chapters/65885278) and [chapter fourteen (asylum AU, kind of dark).](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817379/chapters/65959795#workskin)
> 
> If you're here for my guest spot on the series ["Yo la radio y tú mi hit mundial,"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25973965) it's [chapter twenty.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817379/chapters/66243502)
> 
> The rest of the works are all a couple of scenes longs, set in various universes and with various supporting casts.
> 
> Work title from [ Jósean Log. ](https://open.spotify.com/track/10rzSpg3kTFSr5e5tFy60A?si=bEckqWpdSJmgj1y20vnCAw)

Balvin gets off of work at the same time every day. As he walks down the stairs from his office to the bike rack where he always leaves it tied up, he has his eyes on his phone, busy sending last minute emails. He almost doesn’t notice the guy stealing his bike.

“Hijueputa, qué hace?” he yells.

The thief startles, turning to look at Balvin. He has his hood pulled up over his forehead, but Balvin can just make out his very blonde hair and mismatched dark beard. He waves the wire cutters threateningly in Balvin’s direction. Balvin puts his hands up, edging away carefully. The thief grabs Balvin’s bike and starts to run away.

“Jesus Christ,” Balvin yells at him as he disappears. “At least ride it!”


	2. “that’s the easy part”

“I miss you,” Maluma says into the phone.

“I miss you, too,” Balvin says. “But you’re coming home soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

“You could cancel your plans. Tear up your contract and tell them you’re done. I’ll support you if you want to be a house husband.”

“Ha, ha,” Maluma says dryly. “You’d get tired of me. _I’d_ get tired of me.”

“No,” Balvin says, then, “maybe.”

Maluma laughs at him. “I hope not.”

“No, never.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”


	3. “you did this?”

The message had said “emergency, come quickly.” Maluma rushes home to find his house full of puppies.

“Oh my God,” he says. “What happened?”

Balvin hems and haws for a while, but Maluma eventually pulls the story out of him. In summary: Balvin is not allowed unsupervised on Craigslist anymore.


	4. “that didn’t stop you before”

“No,” Maluma says.

“It’s a tradition!” Balvin pouts.

“No,” Maluma repeats himself.

“Please?”

“We are not having sex at the Grammys! There’s no Grammys to have sex at this year!”

“Look, if you just record your video from the waist up…”

“No!”


	5. “unacceptable, try again”

There are too many flowers in Maluma’s house. It’s violent, the amount of red that covers every surface, overflowing onto the floor, out the windows, drowning him in a sea of petals. The roses fill his house, an open threat: the thorns could stab him to death, leave him bleeding out on the floor, and it would only add to the red.

Maluma freezes in place, trapped in his greenhouse prison, breathing too much oxygen and feeling lightheaded.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” he says. “I wanted an apology.”


	6. “that was impressive”

“Uy, qué rico, papi, házmelo así, no pares.”

The headboard bangs against the wall.

“Hnnnnngh.”

“Oh, fuck! Ay, por Dios, unghh, no me lo creo, ahh, fuck.”

“Mmh, sí, nhhhhh.”

“Sí, así, así, oh, fuck me, oh, oh, papi sí, oh!”

There’s a loud knock from the neighboring room.

“Can you please shut the fuck up?” says Justin through the wall. “We were joking! No one thinks you’re bad at sex.”

Maluma looks at Balvin, slightly out of breath. They giggle at each other, and then, slowly, they stop jumping on the mattress.

Maluma raises an eyebrow. Balvin nods. Maluma calmly sits down, and then he lets out the longest, loudest, most obnoxious chain of explicatives Balvin has ever heard. Most of them don’t even make sense. Maluma finishes his performance with a few over the top moans for good measure, the leans over and bangs on the wall.

“Wow,” Balvin says. He feels himself getting hot around the top of his cheekbones, and he looks away. “Good job.”

“Thank you,” Maluma says. When Balvin looks back at him, he’s grinning.

Balvin sits down next to Maluma. He clears his throat. “Are you really that loud in bed?”

“You wanna find out?”


	7. “yes i did, what about it?”

“Marital status?” the receptionist asks, tapping with a pen at the blank space on the form Balvin filled out.

“Married.”

The receptionist checks the box.

Nicole looks up sharply. “What?!”

“Did I forget to mention that?” Balvin asks, the picture of innocence.

Nicole’s eyes bug out of her head a little bit. “Yes, you did forget to mention that small detail.”

Balvin shrugs and takes his ID back from the receptionist, who tells them to have a seat while they wait. He and Nicole go and sit on a sofa in the lobby.

“Who did you marry? When? How?”

“Juan, a couple weeks ago, I lost a bet.”

Nicole raises an eyebrow. “A bet?”

“He bet I wouldn’t marry him.”

“Doesn’t that mean you won?”

Balvin winks at her. Nicole just laughs.


	8. "i'm not doing that again"

Left.

Left.

Left.

Left.

Left.

Lef— wait a minute.

Jose B., 135 years old, 6,66 km away.

Maluma yawns, then laughs to himself. He clicks through the profile, but it doesn’t seem to be a gimmick, like the Papá Noel profile he saw once. Must just be a mistake, Maluma thinks. Maybe he used a fake birthday and forgot about it.

Maluma looks at the pictures again, now that he's pretty sure this is a real person. Most of them are tried and true standards: hugging his dog, shirtless post-workout, sitting in the shade staring at the water in some exotic location. But Maluma's attention catches on one picture, in profile, eyes looking sideways at the camera. He looks longer at this picture than he did the shirtless ones, and he's not even sure why. Something about the expression makes it hard to look away. Maluma blinks a couple of times, trying to understand the captivating effect this seemingly normal face has over him.

He yawns again and then swipes right. “It’s a match!” lights up his screen, and he gets a message a minute later.

_Hola_

Quite the conversationalist, this guy. Maluma writes him back anyway.

_Hola parce que hubo_

Forty minutes later, the conversation has become slightly more nuanced, and Maluma has a date for Friday night. He does a little victory dance on his way to the kitchen for some ice. He chomps on the cubes as he peruses his wardrobe, wondering what he should wear.

—

Their date goes well. Maluma had his apprehensions, what with the reservations being so late. But when he shows up to the restaurant well after sunset, he decides that maybe there's some merit to this idea. In the darkness, the candles flicker romantically, reflecting off the glass of the window by their table.

They're seated, and Maluma tries not to stare too dreamily. His date is even better looking in person. Maluma finds himself unable to look away, pulled in by the same magnetism of his photos, only the effect is amplified with Balvin sitting across from him.

They talk all night, and only at the end of dinner does Maluma realize that Balvin has barely touched his food, the nearly raw steak still sitting on his plate. Maluma points it out to him, and Balvin waves him off, saying that he had a big lunch. Then he excuses himself to the bathroom. Maluma stares out the window, wondering if he should call a ride home or if Balvin will offer to drive him.

He is startled by Balvin's reappearance. Maluma didn't notice his reflection in the glass, but he hears someone clear their throat, and, suddenly, there he is. Maluma turns to look at him.

"Ready to go?" he asks, and Maluma nods.

"The check?"

"Don't worry about it."

Maluma tries to hide his smile, but he fails. "Thanks," he says.

Balvin smiles back at him. He doesn’t show his teeth.

—

When they arrive back at Maluma's apartment, Balvin walks him up the stairs, making a joke about protecting him from the terrors of the night. Maluma rolls his eyes, but he doesn't argue. They reach the door, and Maluma lingers, looking for an excuse to not say goodbye yet.

"I had a nice time," Maluma says, playing with his keys. He hasn't unlocked the door yet, trying to decide if he wants to bring Balvin in or not.

"Me too," Balvin says, smiling the same close-lipped smile at Maluma.

Maluma smiles back. Fuck it, he's really hot, and Maluma is only human. He unlocks the door and tilts his head towards it. "Do you want something to drink?"

“I don’t drink,” Balvin says, and Maluma’s face falls. 

“Oh.” He’s about to say something else, but Balvin steps into his personal space, and Maluma’s breath catches in his throat.

"But I would like to come in. Are you inviting me inside?" Balvin asks him.

Maluma blinks. Balvin is so close to him. Maluma shivers, feeling a sudden chill. He leans in closer, but Balvin isn’t as warm as he expected him to be. Maybe it’s all the layers of clothing between them. If he can just get those clothes off...

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"You guess, or?"

Maluma leans in all the way, lips brushing quickly over Balvin's. "Yes," he says against his mouth. "I am inviting you inside."

Balvin gives him a look, not quite a smile and not totally a smirk, before kissing him back. Maluma closes his eyes, feeling the fireworks go off in his stomach. "Good," he hears him say before Balvin starts walking him backwards into his own apartment, pushing his jacket off his shoulders.

It's dark inside, but Balvin navigates the furniture eerily well for someone who has never been to Maluma's place before. He directs him towards the bedroom, pulling his clothes off as they go. Maluma feels his bed hit the back of his knees, and he sits down, looking up at Balvin standing in between his legs, still fully dressed.

Balvin leans down to kiss him again, and then he moves down Maluma's neck, teeth grazing over his skin. Maluma moans, tilting his head back. And then Balvin fucking bites him.

It hurts, a lot. Maluma means to push him away, but Balvin has already sprung backwards. Maluma looks at him, spitting out blood onto the carpet and grimacing.

"What the fuck!" Maluma yells, putting his hand over his neck. He feels two small holes, and his fingers come away sticky. He looks at them in horror before turning his attention on Balvin, who still has a disgusted expression on his face.

"You what the fuck!" Balvin yells right back. "You taste awful!"

"You bit me!"

"I wouldn't have done it if I knew what you tasted like!"

"What does that even mean?!"

"Your blood," Balvin says, shaking his head. "It tastes bad."

Maluma splutters at him in disbelief. "What the fuck," is all he can manage.

"Sorry," Balvin says. "I guess I'll go."

"Goddamn Luis Suárez over here. What is wrong with you?"

"Sorry," Balvin repeats. He grimaces again, and that's when Maluma notices that his teeth are not teeth at all. They’re fangs.

"Holy shit!" Maluma scrambles off his bed, trying to put as much distance as possible between him and the fucking vampire he invited into his house.

"Woah," Balvin says, putting up his hands. "Calm down. I'm leaving."

Maluma looks around for some kind of cross or weapon or something. The closest he can find is a framed picture from his baptism that his mom forced on him when he moved out. The frame is pretty heavy. He holds it out in front of himself, trying not to let his arms quiver.

Balvin raises an eyebrow at him.

“Stay back!”

“I just told you, I’m leaving. I gotta get by you. Excuse me.”

Balvin moves toward the exit. Maluma rotates with him, keeping his back to the bed and his baby picture in between them. Balvin is almost at the door when a horrible thought occurs to him.

“Wait!” he yells. Balvin turns back. “I’m not gonna become a vampire too, am I?”

Balvin stops, considering the question. “You shouldn’t,” he says eventually. “I barely drank any of your nasty blood.”

Maluma ignores the insult, although he still feels offended. “What do you mean, ‘you shouldn’t’?”

“I mean, it’s unlikely.”

“How unlikely?”

“I don’t know,” Balvin says, and he has the gall to sound annoyed. “I studied business, okay? Percentages aren’t really my thing.”

Maluma gapes at him. “You went to college?”

Balvin sighs. “Look, man, I’m sorry I bit you. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I was just gonna drink some of your blood and then knock you out. You’d wake up tomorrow and think we’d slept together, and then I’d ghost you.”

“So you’re a ghost, too.” Maluma doesn’t know why he’s making jokes, but Balvin actually laughs. Maybe he’s caught off guard because he smiles a real smile, and Maluma can see his fangs again. It’s still unnerving.

Balvin closes his mouth. “I know you probably don’t want me around, but I’ll stay, if you need me to. Just in case you do change. It can be a scary process. It’s easier if you have someone who knows what’s going on.”

Maluma slowly puts down his baby picture. “Uh,” he says.

“And if you don’t change, I can make you forget this ever happened.”

Maluma considers this. “You can do that?”

Balvin nods.

Maluma sighs. He sits back down in he bed. “You’re not gonna eat me?”

“I thought I made it pretty clear that you taste like shit. You should probably go to the doctor. I think you’re anemic.”

Maluma stands back up. “And say what? ‘Some asshole vampire diagnosed me’?”

Balvin laughs at him, but then his expression changes back, serious again. “Do you want me to stay or not?”

“No,” Maluma says. “I want you to get the fuck out.”

“Okay.”

Balvin starts to leave again. Maluma stops him. “But,” he says loudly. “You know more about this than I do. So yeah, stay. And if I turn into a vampire, I swear to God, I’m gonna kill you.”

“Please don't try,” Balvin starts to say, but Maluma cuts him off.

“Shut up,” he says. “Help me clean up the blood you got on my carpet.”

Balvin looks down at the stain. “It hasn’t set in yet. It should come out easily. You have any hydrogen peroxide?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vampire/anemic idea plagiarized from [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3681648)
> 
> Continued in [ chapter twenty-three.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817379/chapters/66350563)


	9. "will you look at this?"

"Will you look at this?"

"This is a blank screen?"

"Yeah, because I have no idea what to write."


	10. “all i ever wanted”

“What about Enzo?” Balvin asks.

Maluma puts down the book of baby names. He opens his mouth, and then he shuts it again.

Balvin waits patiently.

“Rest in peace,” Maluma says, taking Balvin’s hand and squeezing it. “But we are not naming our daughter after him.”

Balvin sighs. “Fine.”

“Besides, wouldn’t Enzo Jr. get offended?”

On cue, Enzo Jr. pads quietly up to them, tiny tail wagging spastically. Maluma picks him up and places him in Balvin’s lap.

Balvin pets the puppy, muttering about how Enzo the Third would actually be a pretty cool name, in his opinion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably takes place in the same universe as [ “Imagine Me and You.” ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26161348)


	11. “i told you so”

"Why do you want to go to the zoo so badly?"

"The better question," Maluma says, and just by the tone of his voice Balvin can tell that they're going to go to the zoo today, "is why _wouldn't_ you want to go to the zoo?"

Balvin inhales deeply, pressing his lips together and closing his eyes. “Alright. Let’s go.”

The zoo is suspiciously empty, even for a weekday. Balvin glances around, but the only other people he sees are the staff, and even they seem to be keeping their distance.

“Did you do something?”

“Hmm?” Maluma asks, not looking at him.

“Did you do something? There’s no one else here.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maluma says, and he grabs Balvin’s hand, swinging it obnoxiously as they walk.

Balvin rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t take his hand back. He walks alongside him, lets him point out all the animals.

Maluma is not a very good tour guide. He gets distracted easily, running from one exhibit to another. He doesn’t have any fun facts about the animals, either. When Balvin points this out to him, he starts to make them up. Balvin is pretty sure the scientific name for zebras is not “equus más bacano.”

Eventually, they reach the lion exhibit. Even the staff have disappeared by now, the only thing in sight a large banner hung up on the fence. It reads “Feliz Cumpleaños!”

Balvin quirks a eyebrow. “It’s not my birthday.”

“They didn’t have one that said happy Wednesday,” Maluma says, shrugging. 

Balvin laughs quietly. “Happy Wednesday,” he says.

He leans his head on Maluma’s shoulder as they watch the lions lounging around, basking in the last rays of sunshine before the sun sets.

He takes his eyes off the lions for a moment, turns to look at Maluma. He’s beautiful all the time, but in the golden hour, he could be carved out of marble, painted on silk. Something expensive. Something rare.

“You were right,” Balvin says into his ear. “This was a good idea.”

Maluma takes his hand, kisses the back of his palm. “Told you.”


	12. "watch me"

Balvin leaps to his feet, yelling and clapping. 

Maluma’s goal plays again on screen, a long, arching shot off his left foot that sinks deep into the back of the net, sneaking just past the keeper’s gloved fingertips. It’s beautiful.

Balvin grabs Nicole, jumping up and down in excitement. “Yes!” he yells. “Yes, yes, yes!”

The camera cuts to Maluma’s celebration. He runs around the pitch, arms outstretched, then he pulls to a stop right in front of the camera. He makes prayer hands and winks.

Nicole elbows Balvin in the ribs. He pushes her away, embarrassed, but he’s still grinning. 

The referee adds three minutes of stoppage time, and Balvin sits back down to watch nervously. But no one else scores, and when the final whistle blows, 0-1 flashes on the screen.

“Thank God,” Balvin says, collapsing back into the sofa. He watches the rest of the players swarm around Maluma, piling on top of him until Balvin can’t distinguish one person from another. Eventually, they disentangle themselves, walking back to the tunnel, grins on their sweaty faces.

Nicole turns the TV off. “I think your phone is ringing,” she says, fishing it out from where it fell between the couch cushions and holding it out for him before sneaking off to the other room.

Balvin answers the video call. “Congratulations! I’m so proud of you! I love you!”

Maluma is practically vibrating. He’s shirtless, but he hasn’t showered yet, hair still sticking to his neck. Balvin can make out his teammates dancing in the background. He’s pretty sure it’s James’ latest song.

“Gracias, papi. You see my celebration?”

Balvin nods, blushing, still embarrassed by the fact that the whole world saw it, too. But Maluma smiles at him again, a smile that’s only for him. 

“Wish you were here,” he says, and Balvin feels his heart swell in his chest. 

“I’ll be there for the final. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Maluma laughs. “We’re not in the final yet.”

“You’re going to win. I know it.”

“My number one fan,” Maluma says, eyes starting to get big. He blinks a couple of times.

“No,” Balvin shakes his head. “That’s your mom.”

Maluma laughs. “Okay,” he says. “I gotta go. I love you. See you in a couple weeks!”

They wave goodbye, Maluma blowing kisses, and then the call ends. 

“Nicole!” Balvin yells. “We’re going to Munich!”


	13. "i missed this"

Balvin throws the first post-quarantine party because his apartment is the biggest, and he doesn't have a roommate, the rich fuck. Feid shows up an hour late, and he's still the first one there. Or he thought he was, until he spies Maluma coming out of the bedroom and heading towards the kitchen. His hair is unstyled, and he's wearing sweatpants but no shirt.

"Hey," Maluma says, blinking. "What time is it?'

Feid looks at his phone. "Eleven."

"Oh," Maluma says. "Huh. I guess I should get dressed."

"Hurry up," Feid says. "I think more people will show up soon."

Maluma is about to turn around, but he pauses and looks back at Feid. "Hurry up?"

"Yeah," Feid says. "Don't you live on campus? You should hurry up."

"Yes," Maluma says slowly, and then his expression changes. "Yes, I... oh right. Because all of my clothes are on campus, and I definitely don’t have any here. Good looking out, Salo."

Maluma finishes turning around and disappears back into the bedroom. Feid is about to point out that the front door is in the other direction, but he's distracted by the arrival of what sounds like a large group of people.

Feid goes to investigate, seeing Balvin open the door and greet Lenny with an elaborate handshake. Lenny gets halfway through and gives up, already too drunk to remember. Balvin shakes his head and then sends him inside.

Lenny makes a beeline for the kitchen table, setting down the large backpack he brought with him. He sits down and opens it up. Like Santa Clause on Christmas, he starts pulling out bottle after bottle of aguardiente, whisky, vodka, rum. A crowd starts to form around him, but Lenny swats away their grabby hands with an actual flyswatter he pulls out of the bag. That is, until Anitta swings by and snags the only bottle of tequila.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Lenny says as she drags Cazzu over to Balvin’s kitchen to in search of limes.

Anitta blows him a kiss over her shoulder.

“Come on,” Anitta says to Cazzu. “Let’s go do shots.”

“Oh no,” Cazzu says. "That's not a good idea."

"No, but you're gonna do it anyway." Anitta winks at her.

Dalex, eavesdropping on their conversation, scrambles after them like a cat on the third floor hearing a can opening on the first floor.

With Anitta gone, Lenny’s attention turns to Feid. “Hello, Salomón,” he leers. “Drink?”

Before Feid can respond, Sech elbows him out of the way. “You really just gonna give drinks to the people you wanna fuck? And nobody else? Come on, man, don’t do me like that. I thought we were cool.”

Feid thinks Sech has come to the wrong conclusion. Lenny offered a drink to him, after all. And technically, he didn't offer one to Anitta. She just took it. He looks at Lenny for clarification, but Lenny just shrugs and then spreads his legs wider, gesturing between them with the flyswatter. “C’mere baby, you thirsty? Come sit on my lap and tell daddy what you want to drink.”

Sech rolls his eyes and complains about sexual harassment. He wrenches the bottle out of Lenny’s hand. “IOU,” he says, and he hurries off somewhere else, putting a healthy amount of space between him and Lenny.

“With interest!” Lenny calls after him.

Sech flips him off.

Lenny turns his attention back to Feid. “So,” he says, making prolonged eye contact. “Drink?”

“Yeah,” Feid says. “Sure.” He's not one to turn down free alcohol.

Sky shows up not long after that, and he brings his whole sound rig. Feid sees him and Balvin carrying more equipment than their school uses for official events, setting it all up in the living room. The bass comes roaring out of the speakers, and suddenly everyone is dancing.

Anitta puts them all to shame. Feid watches, hypnotized, as she makes her ass do gravity-defying things, even in jeans. Someone, probably Justin, has the brilliant idea to tell Lenny that she’s a better dancer than he is, and that leads to a dance-off on all surfaces of Balvin’s apartment as Lenny desperately tries to twerk as well as Anitta.

When it’s over and Anitta is declared the winner with Natti in second place, Feid walks outside, needing some fresh air and hoping someone will have some weed.

He doesn’t find any, but he does find Balvin. He’s sitting on a chair next to Maluma, who made it back to his dorm, judging by the clothes he has on.

“Hey,” Feid says, uncertainty. They’re both smiling at him, but he still feels like he’s interrupting something. “It’s hot inside.”

“Yeah,” Maluma says. “We saw the dance-off.”

“You did?”

“Yeah,” Balvin says. “We did.”

Feid glances between the two of them again, and he still can’t shake the feeling that he’s intruding. “Cool,” he says awkwardly. “I’m gonna... go find someone to smoke with.” He gestures over his shoulder.

“Alejo is always good for it, if you can drag him away from his precious equipment,” Maluma suggests.

Feid makes finger guns at him and heads back inside. He can hear Balvin and Maluma giggling to themselves as he leaves.

He has to bribe Sky with promises to buy him tasty fried things after they smoke, but he eventually gets him to give up his post in the living room. Sky leaves Mosty with instructions not to play any whack songs and ruin his reputation.

They recruit Justin, who throws in half a gram, and Natti’s friend Becky, who rolls the blunt. They stand outside in a circle, passing it around.

“Where’d Jose go?” Feid asks.

“Bro, are you that high? He was never here. You know he doesn’t smoke.” Justin laughs at him, and Feid rolls his eyes.

“I meant,” Feid says as he takes the blunt from Sky, “that he was here earlier. Him and Juan.”

“Oh,” Justin says. “Well, you should have said that.”

“They probably went to fuck,” Becky says. 

Feid starts coughing like it’s his first time smoking. Sky thumps him unhelpfully on the back while Justin cracks up.

“What?” Feid spits out when he can breathe again. “What did you just say?”

Becky rolls her eyes. “They probably went to fuck,” she repeats herself. “Don’t be homophobic, dude. It’s not a good look.”

Feid takes another hit. “I’m not,” he says, trying to talk and hold his breath at the same time. He’s almost successful. “But why would they be fucking?” Feid passes to Justin, who is still laughing at him, even as he inhales and passes to Becky.

Becky looks at him like he’s stupid. “Because that’s what people do?”

“Yeah, but. Not them. Why would they do that?” Feid is starting to feel very confused. Being high doesn’t really help.

“Why not?” Sky asks, frowning as Becky passes to him.

“Wait a minute,” Feid says, realization dawning in him. He almost drops the blunt when Sky hands it to him. “Are they, like, together?”

“Oh my God,” Justin says. “Everyone knows this.”

Feid almost doesn’t pass, just out of spite. “I didn’t!” he says after he exhales. “I missed this!”

“Well, now you know,” Becky says, and then she changes the subject.

Feid makes a note to discuss this lack of openness and communication with people he considers friends, but he quickly forgets. The discussion turns to a debate of whether anyone has ever gotten addicted to smoking weed. Sky and Becky say no. Justin insists he knows someone who did. Feid is on the fence, arguing that psychological addiction is not the same as physical addiction, but is still kinda real. Then he squints at his shoes and wonders if he should invest in orthopedic soles.

Eventually, they run out of weed. Becky takes the roach from Justin and holds it delicately in her long, manicured nails. She inhales one last time, then crushes it under the toe of her shoe.

They disperse, and Feid goes back inside to find Lenny and cop another drink. He’s very thirsty. 

“I should have won the dance-off,” Lenny says as he pours Feid some noxious mix that is ninety percent whisky.

“I don’t know about that,” Feid says. “You were good, though,” he adds when he notices how sad Lenny looks.

“You think so?”

“Yeah! Women are better dancers. No shame in losing to one. Or two.”

“You’re not just saying that to get in my pants?”

“No, I, wait what?” 

Lenny grins at him. “It’s okay if you are,” he says. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

“Uh,” Feid says, feeling a lot more fucked up than he did a minute ago.

“I’m kidding,” Lenny says. “Well, no I’m not. But forget it.”

Feid’s not sure if his eyes really bug out of his head, but it kind of feels like it. He stares at Lenny for an undetermined amount of time.

“What’s your deal?”

Lenny shrugs. “I’m just here for a good time. Don’t be weird about it.”

“I’m not being weird,” Feid says. “You’re being weird.”

“You're so high,” Lenny says, and his patronizing voice grates on Feid’s eardrums.

“I’m really not,” he says. He leans in close to Lenny, closer than he meant to. He’s not really sure why he does it, but this close, Lenny smells nice. Soap and cologne and something sharp. Oh. Alcohol.

Lenny looks at him, unphased. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“So you don’t mind if I...” Lenny leans in, just as close as Feid.

Feid closes his eyes. He feels like he’s floating.

Lenny moves a second too late.

“Oh, shit, sorry!” Cazzu says, turning around and hastily walking away from Feid and Lenny making out at the kitchen table. She takes a bottle of vodka with her, but Lenny is too distracted to notice, and Feid doesn’t rat her out.


	14. "you better leave now"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General warning, this is a little fucked up.
> 
> More specific triggers: forced institutionalization, forced drug administration, desire to self-harm, period-accurate homophobia, abuse in a medical setting, implied murder.

The orderly escorts Balvin from the lobby, down the hallway, and into what is optimistically dubbed "his room." But he knows the truth the minute the door closes. There's no handle on the inside, only a small barred window that offers an obstructed view of the hallway.

Balvin runs his hands around the frame, feeling for a weakness, a way out, but there's nothing. He leans his shoulder into the door, trying to force it open. It doesn't work. He backs up a couple of steps, then throws himself at the door. It still doesn't budge, but the noise alerts the staff that something is amiss. He hurries to his bed, sitting on top of the covers and trying to look inconspicuous.

A different orderly peers in through his window. Balvin glares sullenly. The orderly disappears.

At dinner time, someone comes to unlock his door, and he is escorted into the cafeteria. Compared to his cell, it’s very loud. The orderlies try to suppress conversation between patients, but most are not talking to anyone but themselves. There’s an occasional yell, or scream, or bout of singing out loud.

Balvin watches nervously before he gets in line to collect a plastic tray with a plastic plate and a plastic spoon. There are no forks or knives, and even the spoon's edges are dulled. He dutifully waits his turn in line as an unappetizing assortment of soft, bland foods are portioned out for him.

He sits at the end of a table alone, scared to sit next to the wrong person. Some people are so heavily medicated they can’t eat properly, hands shaking dangerously as they try to move the food from the plate to the mouth. Some seem like wild animals, eating at breakneck speed, eyes darting from left to right, on the lookout for potential thieves. He tries not to look anyone in the eye.

He looks down at his plate, instead, and the sight makes his stomach turn. He pushes it away and sighs.

"Try to eat," someone says to him.

Balvin looks up. He doesn't see anyone. He turns around and accidentally makes eye contact with another patient. He's young, barely twenty. He'd be good-looking anywhere, but here he stands out like a peacock among peahens.

"Eat your food," he says again. "You’ll get in trouble if you don’t." Then he hurriedly follows his own advice as an orderly starts to notice their conversation.

Balvin pulls his tray back towards himself and picks at it halfheartedly. When he finishes as much as he can take, he takes the dishes back to the kitchen. An orderly looks at his plate as he scraped it into the trash.

“Waste is sinful,” the orderly chides him.

“Sorry,” Balvin says. “I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Do you need to see the doctor?”

“No,” Balvin shakes his head. “I’ll be fine.”

The orderly eyes him sternly but doesn’t say anything else. Balvin walks away quickly.

— 

After breakfast the next day, Balvin meets with the psychologist for approximately seven minutes. He’s deemed a category one patient and released into the day room for recreational activities. His choices of entertainment are Bible study, arts and crafts, or board games.

Balvin spots the guy from dinner yesterday coloring with crayons, so he goes and sits across from him.

“Hi,” Balvin says uncertainty.

He glances up at Balvin and quirks his mouth, just the briefest suggestion of a smile, before marshaling his face back into neutral. He passes a sheet of paper and a couple of crayons across the table.

Balvin takes them, picking up a crayon and staring blankly at the paper.

The guy clears his throat softly. Balvin looks up and sees him writing upside down on his paper so that he can read it.

_What’s your name?_

Balvin tried to do the same, but writing upside down is harder than he thoughts. He manages to write “Jose” in wobbly letters, feeling embarrassed about his poor penmanship.

_You can call me Maluma._

_Thanks for yesterday._

_Don’t worry about it. It’s hard being new._

Balvin nods. He doesn’t know what else to say, so he stops replying. Maluma doesn’t seem to mind. He starts drawing for real, a horse, a crown, a house on a hill.

Balvin stares at his own paper, and he draws a smiley face.

Maluma looks at Balvin’s paper, and he smiles for real, reaching all the way to his eyes. Balvin draws another smiley face. Maluma stifles a giggle, and then he glances around. The orderlies are not paying attention to them, but Maluma turns his attention back to his paper, not looking at Balvin anymore.

They draw in silence until Maluma clears his throat softly again. He writes again, hastier this time.

_Time’s almost up. Draw something over the words. They check what we draw._

Maluma starts drawing a large cross, coloring darkly over their conversation. Balvin covers his with a sun and stars, but he adds a cross, too, just in case.

—

Maluma is not at group therapy or at lunch afterward. Balvin looks for him in the cafeteria, but he’s nowhere to be found. Balvin sits at the same table as yesterday. It’s harder to eat his food without someone to encourage him.

When he takes his dishes into the kitchen, the orderly looks at him disapprovingly.

“We don’t waste food here. If you’re unable to eat, we’ll set up an IV for you.”

Balvin looks at the orderly. “Sorry,” he says.

“Well,” the orderly says, “are you able to eat or not?”

There’s a threat behind the words. Balvin doesn’t know what to do. He picks up his spoon and starts to eat. The orderly watches him finish the plate before making a show of scraping the remains into the trash can.

“Waste is sin. You think you’re too good for this food?”

Balvin shakes his head quickly. “No.”

“Next time you eat everything. We don’t provide to those who are ungrateful.”

Balvin nods, and then he flees.

—

Maluma reappears in the afternoon. The category one patients are released into the yard for outdoor recreation, and Balvin sees him running laps on the dirt path that serves as a track.

Balvin falls in with him, and they jog together. They don’t speak, Maluma only shaking his head when Balvin asks where he was. But for the first time since he was delivered here, Balvin feels some semblance of normalcy. Running feels good. Being outside feels good.

All too soon, the recreational period is over, and the orderlies call them back in. One of them stops Balvin before he can go back to the day room.

“Are you making the best choices for your health?” the orderly asks.

Balvin is pretty sure this is a trick question, so he doesn’t answer outright.

“I asked you a question!” the orderly thunders at him.

“I’m trying to?” Balvin says.

The orderly scrutinizes him. Balvin tries not to fidget. “Be careful of the company you keep,” the orderly says. “Bad influences can easily steer you onto the wrong path.”

“Understood.”

The orderly glares at him a moment before letting him go.

—

Balvin’s days pass slowly, bleeding into each other until he forgets how long he’s been here. He thinks it might have been a month, but he’s not sure.

When the weather is nice, they’re allowed outside in the afternoons. Balvin has never looked forward to exercising so much in his life. He and Maluma jog around the overgrown track. They talk to each other only when they’re on the far side, hoping their words don’t carry in the wind.

“Why are you here?” Maluma asks him one day.

Balvin looks away for a moment, reluctant to answer. They come up around the curve, and Balvin takes advantage of the forced silence. But after they jog past the orderlies, he says, “I feel empty sometimes. Or sad. Most of the time, I guess. I don’t know why. Sometimes I just want to sleep all day and all night and not wake up. I told the wrong person that, and now I'm here.”

Maluma looks at him, but they’re getting close to the other end of the track, so he doesn’t respond. When it’s safe, he says, “if you feel bad here, don't tell anyone.”

Balvin nods. “I know.”

“I’m serious,” Maluma emphasizes. “Never tell them.”

“Okay,” Balvin says. 

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

"Just come to me. I'll try to help you."

"Okay."

Balvin wants to ask Maluma why he’s here, but they’re called inside. 

—

The only things Balvin has to mark the time are the occasional incidents with other patients. Sometimes someone refuses to eat, or go to therapy, or take their medication. Sometimes they scream, sometimes they cry, sometimes they try to attack the orderlies. But the outcome is always the same. The orderlies call the medics, who come with their rubber gloves and their needles and swarm the patient, overpower them, and stick something in their arm. On especially bad days, the medics take them away while they're unconscious.

Sometimes they come back, pumped to the ears full of Thorazine, a new drug, Maluma tells him, unable to eat or talk or walk. Sometimes they don't, and even Maluma doesn't have answers about where they go.

Maluma knows almost everything about this place, and he relays as much of it as he can to Balvin. He teaches Balvin how to hide his medicine in his mouth and spit it out later. He points out which of the orderlies are almost human, knocking on the door of his cell before they come in to toss it, and which ones barge in the middle of the night, making a big show out of the power they hold over him.

The one thing Maluma never shares, though, is what got him sent here. Balvin brings it up several times, in person and on paper, but Maluma never gives him a straight answer, and Balvin can't figure it out. Maluma seems perfectly healthy. He's smart, lucid, knows what year it is and what city they're in. He's educated, speaks English and some Portuguese, knows a lot about horses. None of it makes any sense.

Nor does his flimsy explanation for how he has a copy of the building keys. Maluma comes to visit sometimes, after lights out, opening Balvin's door like it's nothing. Balvin thought he was hallucinating the first time, but Maluma had just shrugged and gave some story about finding them on the floor. Balvin doesn't believe him, but he's grateful for the company. Most nights, he lies awake staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. When Maluma shows up, at least he has someone to talk to.

"Why don't you escape?" Balvin asked him the first time.

Maluma had shrugged. "Where would I go? We're in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn't make it far enough before they figured out I was gone."

Balvin had frowned, but he let it go.

Tonight, Maluma doesn't come in. He opens the door and hisses quickly, "ditch anything you have! They're doing checks!" Then he runs off, presumably back to his own cell.

Balvin doesn't have anything, so he just goes back to his bed, lying on his back, waiting.

There's no knock this time. The door is thrown open, and Balvin sighs to himself. He gets off the mattress, walking over to the wall as is standard procedure. He doesn't recognize the orderly, a large, burly figure with a shrill voice. The orderly starts tossing his cell, stripping the mattress and pillowcase, searching along the bed frame, under the feet of the bed itself. There's nothing there, and the orderly grunts angrily before starting on the dresser.

Balvin starts to zone out, waiting for the ordeal to be over with. He snaps back to attention when the orderly yells, "what's this!"

Balvin looks at the razor blade in the orderly's hand. "That's not mine," he says immediately.

"Of course not," the orderly says patronizingly. "Come with me."

"It's not mine," Balvin insists. "You planted that there!"

"Are you accusing me of lying?"

Balvin knows better than to say yes. "It's not mine," he says again.

"Come on," the orderly says. "We're going to go see the doctor."

—

Balvin spends what he thinks is a week in solitary confinement, under constant observation. The window in this door is even smaller than his regular cell, but every time he looks out of it, he can see someone looking back at him. The new room has been stripped of anything that could even conceivably be considered a weapon. The bed is bolted to the wall, immovable, and there are no sheets or blankets on it. The mattress is some synthetic material that won't tear.

By what Balvin thinks is the fourth day, he's hoping his fingernails will grow faster so he can scratch at his skin, give the watchers something to really worry about.

But they don't, and he's eventually released. When they finally decide he's no longer a danger to himself, or that he’s been punished enough, they escort him back to his regular room. He collapses onto his bed and doesn't come out until a team of medics drag him to see the psychologist again.

"We're going to revoke your status as a category one patient," the psychologist threatens him.

Balvin stares blankly.

"You're not showing any dedication to improving yourself. You've missed all your therapy sessions."

Balvin shrugs.

"We're going to up your dosage."

Balvin sighs.

—

Maluma pulls some kind of strings to keep him in status as a category one patient. Balvin doesn’t ask, and Maluma doesn’t offer an explanation, but he tells Balvin to come outside, and the orderlies don’t stop them. Balvin could really care less, but Maluma begs him, and he drags himself out to sit on a bench in the shade for a while before retreating back to his room.

The next afternoon, he manages to stay for almost ten minutes. Maluma still has to goad him into it every time, but he gets Balvin to leave his room on a semi-regular basis, and eventually, they start exercising again. They don’t run anymore, but the slow laps around the track mean they have more time to talk.

Maluma carries the conversation. He talks nonstop on the far end of the track, and Balvin listens to what he has to say but doesn’t often respond. 

Maluma doesn’t seem to care. He talks about everything and nothing, chattering away just to fill the silence.

Balvin stops walking on the far side of the track. “Why are you here?” he asks.

Maluma comes to a halt next to him. “We have to keep walking,” he says. “We’ll get in trouble.”

“Who cares?”

“Come on.” Maluma starts walking again, although more slowly than usual. Balvin stays where he is.

“Tell me why you’re here. What did you do?”

Maluma turns around. “If I tell you, will you keep walking?”

Balvin puts one foot out in front of the other. Maluma rolls his eyes. Balvin takes another step.

“Okay,” Maluma says, and he starts walking again, checking to make sure Balvin is following him. “I got caught at school.”

“Doing what?”

“I,” Maluma hesitates. Balvin stops walking. “I was kissing someone I wasn’t supposed to.”

Balvin frowns. “Who?”

“The professor.”

Balvin thinks about what he said, repeats it in his head. El profesor. _El_ profesor. _El._

“He sent me here so he wouldn’t get fired.”

Balvin stops walking again, out of shock this time. “You’re,” he pauses, trying to think of an appropriate word, “a homosexual?”

Maluma looks at him, and Balvin has never seen him so nervous. Even when there’s an incident and the medics come, swarming like insects, he always looks calm, keeps it together. Now he can’t even make eye contact. “I don’t know,” he says. “That was my first kiss.”

Balvin doesn’t know what to say. He keeps walking, and when the orderlies call them in, he hurries back to his room, shutting the door and curling up on his bed.

—

Maluma stops trying to get him to walk when Balvin stops responding to him. He lets Balvin stay in his room, doesn’t badger him about going to therapy. Eventually, Balvin is recategorized as a category two patient, and he can’t go out as often anyway. 

He sometimes sees Maluma, at meals, but he doesn’t stick around long. He puts all the soft, tasteless food in his mouth as quickly as possible and goes back to his room.

An orderly stops him on the way. “Glad to see you making the right choices.”

Balvin doesn’t respond. He ducks past and lies on his bed, waiting for sleep to come.

It comes more easily these days. Balvin starts taking his medicine, regrets all the pills he threw away. They make him feel hazy, but he also feels warm, sleepy, unbothered. He could spend all day curled up, worried about nothing, brain devoid of thoughts or emotions or troubles. He drifts off, and he doesn’t dream about anything.

The door opening wakes him up. He rubs his eyes, groggy and disoriented. The same rough orderly is back, going through his things. Balvin stares blankly as he’s confronted with yet another item that doesn’t belong to him.

“Is this yours?” the orderly screams at him.

Balvin shakes his head no.

“Why are you lying?” The yelling continues. Balvin wants it to stop.

“Why are you lying? Where did you get this? Is this yours?”

Balvin nods his head yes.

—

They put him in the same cell, but this time there’s no one watching outside. Food comes irregularly, as does his medication. It eventually stops entirely, and he wonders if he’s going to die alone in this box.

Lucidity comes back to him slowly, but with a vengeance. The fog lifts, and reality looks much bleaker. Balvin estimates that it’s been at least four days since someone last came by.

He sleeps on and off, trying to conserve the energy that he doesn’t get from food anymore. 

A noise startles him awake, and his first thought is that the orderlies are here to toss his cell. But then he sees Maluma gesturing frantically at him.

“Come on,” he whispers frantically. “Hurry!”

Balvin blinks. “What?”

“We’re escaping.”

“How?”

Maluma doesn’t answer him, just grabs his arm and drags him out. They run through the hallway, Balvin’s bare feet smacking against the cold floor. They make it to the front door before an alarm starts to sound. Maluma pushes the door open, and they run outside onto the grounds. There isn't much by way of security besides a large fence that surrounds the property, but they're still miles from the nearest town. Balvin runs towards the fence anyway.

The orderlies chase after them, led by the portly one who framed Balvin twice. For someone so large, the orderly moves pretty fast. They have enough of a head start that they make it, though, throwing themselves at the chain links and climbing. Balvin is glad to be barefoot. He manages to stick his toes through the links and climb faster. Maluma makes it to the top on sheer athleticism.

There's barbed wire running all across the top of the fence, but they climb over it anyway. Adrenaline blocks out most of the pain, and when Balvin jumps off on the other side, he almost feels giddy. They keep running through the woods. Balvin doesn't know what direction they're going in, if Maluma has a plan, or if they're just running. It almost doesn't matter.

They run until it sounds like no one is chasing them anymore, and then they slow to a very fast walk. Balvin is exhausted. Four days without food have left him weak and fragile, but they can't stop. Maluma keeps him going, saying how they're going to make it, they're going to be free.

When Balvin physically can't move anymore, they stop, huddled together under a tree. It's freezing outside, and they only have their thin, standard-issue clothes. Balvin closes his eyes for what he thought was just a minute, but the next thing he knows, Maluma is shaking him awake, saying that they have to keep moving.

They go as fast as Balvin can make his legs move. He can't feel his feet anymore, but somehow he manages to put one in front of the other. Balvin doesn't know how Maluma knows what direction to take them in. He can barely see in the darkness, tripping over rocks and fallen branches, but Maluma keeps them going until Balvin has to stop again.

"I'm sorry," he says, leaning over his knees and trying not to collapse.

"It's okay," Maluma says. "But we need to keep going."

"I can't."

"Put your arm around me. I'll help you."

They carry on like that, Maluma supporting Balvin's weight, until they finally reach a road. They lie down at the edge of the woods, watching and waiting for a car to come by.

None come their way, and Balvin falls asleep again. This time the sun wakes him up. Balvin looks over, and Maluma is asleep, too. Balvin leans over and gently shakes him awake.

"Shit!" Maluma says. "Come on. We have to go."

They stay in the woods but follow the road for what seems like forever. It's worse than the first day. Balvin's feet are cracked and bleeding, his legs sore and uncooperative. Maluma talks nonstop, trying to distract him.

"How did you know where I was?" Balvin asks him.

"The doctor told me."

"Really?" Balvin would stop to look at him, if he could.

Maluma nods. "I, uh," he says, and he stays quiet for a minute. Then, "I used to have an arrangement with him. That's how I got the keys, you know, to go out at night, and how I kept you in category one."

"What kind of arrangement?"

Maluma doesn't answer.

Balvin thinks about it and puts two and two together. "Oh," he says.

Maluma glances at him.

"It's okay," Balvin says. "Thank you. You saved my life."

"I couldn't leave you there. You're my best friend."

Balvin is about to answer, but the sound of a car approaching catches their attention. Maluma tells him to stay put, and he walks out to the road, waving his hands.

The car pulls over, rolling down a window. Maluma says something to the driver.

From the woods, Balvin can't quite make it out, but he thinks the driver looks familiar.


	15. “not interested, thank you”

It’s only April, and they’re already up to seven. This is the year they break their wedding attendance record.

“What are you wearing?” Maluma yells from the bathroom.

“Suit,” Balvin yells back.

“Yeah, which one?”

“The black one.”

“Really?”

Balvin stops responding, so Maluma rolls his eyes and gets out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist. He walks into the bedroom. Balvin is not wearing a black suit.

“Oh, come on. Don’t wear that leprechaun thing. They’re gonna think we don’t like them!”

“Who are they, again?”

Maluma runs a hand through his hair and then pushes Balvin’s shoulder. “Don’t be like that.”

Balvin looks down at the handprint on his jacket. “Seriously, do we even know them?”

“It’s my second cousin, or something like that. The one that works for the airline.”

Balvin doesn’t remember, and it shows on his face. But he does take off the suit jacket. And then he replaces it with a pink one.

“You look like a watermelon,” Maluma says.

“Because you’d eat me any day of the summer?”

“It’s April,” Maluma says, and he smacks Balvin with his towel.

— 

They eventually make it to the wedding. It’s a nice ceremony, although there are too many people, in Maluma’s opinion. The amount of weddings they’ve been to lately mean he’s become somewhat of a critic.

The food at the reception is good, which is the most important part. Maluma leaves Balvin making friends with the people at his their table and goes to find his family members.

“Juancho! You made it!”

They catch up for a while, Maluma snagging various appetizers off the trays of passing waiters. The bride and groom stop by, making their rounds.

The groom shakes his hand, clapping him on the back.

“Thanks for coming!” the bride says. She kisses Maluma on either cheek.

“Thanks for inviting us,” Maluma says around a mouthful of chicken satay. He tries to chew quickly.

“Yeah, of course!” the bride says. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

Maluma gestures vaguely in Balvin’s direction. “Probably promising someone to do a feature on their mixtape or whatever.”

The bride laughs politely. “You’re next, right?”

“...on the mixtape?” He doesn’t understand the question. 

“No, to get married!”

“Oh, ha, ha,” Maluma says, wishing he had more chicken. “Yeah, I don’t know about that.”

“Don’t be silly,” she says, winking at him, and then she leaves to keep greeting the guests. 

Maluma makes his excuses to his family, and then he goes back to his table. He grabs a few more appetizers on the way.

Balvin isn’t there when he gets back, but it doesn’t take him long to reappear, chatting away with another guest as if they were long lost friends.

He says goodbye with a bro hug and rejoins Maluma, just in time for the first course.

It’s not too wild of a party, which surprises Maluma. He remembers spending his teenager years getting into trouble with this particular cousin, but the wedding is relaxed, mostly just dancing and having a good time.

After the bride and groom’s first dance, the DJ puts on another slow song and invites all the couples. Then he starts kicking them off the dance floor according to how long they’ve been married.

“Everyone married less than one year, time to go,” the DJ says.

Maluma throws his hands up, but Balvin just drags them back to their table.

“That’s discriminatory,” Maluma complains.

“Calm down,” Balvin says. “It’s a wedding thing.”

“We’re not doing that at our wedding.”

Balvin raises his eyebrows. “You said you didn’t want to get married.”

“I don’t,” Maluma says. “But it’s the principle of the matter.”

“So it’s a protest wedding? To protest... weddings?”

Maluma rolls his eyes. “That’s a better reason to get married than some.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, like if you married me just because you knocked me up.”

Balvin laughs, loud and short. “That seems unlikely. Because of, uh, biology,” he says. Then he adds,“but I would, just so you know. I’m not a dead beat.”

“Tell you what,” Maluma says. “You knock me up, and we can get married.” He sticks his hand out.

“Deal,” Balvin says, shaking it. “You wanna go give it a try?” 


	16. “i never wanted anything else”

There it is, that squeaking sound again. The sound of a faulty wheel, bought from the lowest bidder, that sticks, but not badly enough to warrant replacement, according to their supervisor. Maluma looks up from his computer, displeased. He sees his least favorite coworker scooting the offending chair across the aisle to chat with his second least favorite coworker.

Twenty-six minutes later, not that he’s timing them, and he sees Balvin roll his chair back across the aisle. But he doesn't go back to his desk. He goes to see Maluma's third least favorite coworker.

Mister Congeniality, Maluma thinks to himself in a mocking singsong. Mister Social Butterfly. Mister I've Worked Here So Long and They Love Me So Much They'll Never Fire Me. Mister—

"Mr. Londoño?"

Maluma looks up. It's Sebastián from HR.

"Hi Seba," Maluma says. This can't be good.

"Mr. Londoño," Sebastián says again. Maluma doesn't know why he insists on calling everyone by their last name. He's known Sebastián since they played keepy-uppy together as five-year-olds on their local youth team. "I'm here to tell you that your request to move desks was approved. We take reasonable accommodation requests very seriously."

That's not the only thing you take seriously, Maluma thinks. But he doesn't say it out loud. No reason to ruin his good luck with bad karma. "Great!" he says instead. "I have everything packed. I’m moving now."

Sebastián blinks a couple times. "Uh," he says, the cracks in his professional adult costume starting to show. "Yeah, sure, I guess. That would be acceptable protocol." There he goes again.

Maluma grins at Sebastián anyway, and then he piles his boxes onto his chair, pushing it to the empty desk in the corner that's been vacant since Llane quit. There are some cobwebs collecting, but Maluma could care less. He unpacks his things, smiling to himself the whole time. Finally, some peace and quiet. This is the good life. This is what he deserves.

He opens up his project and stares at the screen. He stares a little longer.

He reorganizes the information alphabetically and then chronologically.

He changes the font size.

He changes the font.

Then he stands up and goes to get some coffee. When he comes back, he walks past Balvin, chatting away with the new employee. He glares at both of them, feeling a sudden wave of displeasure. Balvin waves cheerfully, purposefully oblivious. Maluma walks faster back to his new desk. His perfect space. His quiet sanctuary.

It's so quiet here. It's so empty. There's no one around. There's no one to bother him.

This is what he wanted, so why does he feel like something is missing?


	17. “give me a minute or an hour”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is sexually explicit, albeit very briefly.

"Fucking feds," Nicky says when they pull up to the crime scene in their patrol car. The sidewalk is crawling with suits, and there are black SUVs blocking off most of the street. Balvin parks illegally in front of a fire hydrant a block away and gets out. He hears a helicopter circling above.

"Ridiculous," Nicky says as they make their way over. Balvin looks at the suspects, cuffed and sitting on the curb, shaking his head as he sees months of work getting swallowed up by the bureaucratic nightmare that is the federal government. He steps around them, flashing his NYPD badge to the officer posted outside the area marked off with yellow tape. He might as well have flipped the bird, for all the good it does him.

Nicky starts posturing, ready to raise some hell, but then they're waved under. Balvin looks around for the source of their sudden good fortune. He makes eye contact with a familiar face.

"Oh," Nicky says before Balvin can stop him. _"Fucking_ feds."

Balvin elbows him hard in the ribs, but his Kevlar blocks most of the impact.

"Hello, Jose," Maluma says.

"Juan Luis." Balvin eyes his FBI vest distastefully. "This is our case. We've been working it for months! You really gonna ruin that over a weapons charge? They're street level, nowhere near the top."

"RICO," Maluma says, and that's all the information Balvin can coax out of him before he turns on his shiny leather heel and disappears.

"Fuck me," Balvin mutters under his breath, and then he quickly steps on Nicky's toes as he hears his mouth start to open.

Back at the office, Balvin has to explain to his boss that four almost-certain clearances were snatched out from under them. Rafael paces around, chirping angrily about how they need the numbers, goddamnit, the mayor is already up his ass in an election year. Then he turns to Balvin, pointing aggressively.

"Go over there," he says.

Balvin raises his eyebrows, tilting his head. "What?"

"Go talk to them. You have a connection, right? That guy you worked with on the trafficking thing? The Colombian one. Go butter him up, play the country card, I don't care. We need those clearances."

"Okay," Balvin says. "But I'll be gone the rest of the day. You know they don't move fast over there."

"A minute, an hour. Just get our cases back. We need the numbers, B."

He spends the rest of the day in the lobby of the federal building, waiting for someone to come escort him up because heaven forbid he's allowed to wander the halls without adult supervision.

No one shows up, but he does catch Maluma on his way out. He’s walking fast with a group of coworkers, laughing and saying something about going for drinks. Balvin physically intercepts him on his way to the door.

"Juan Luis," he says, stepping out to block his path.

Maluma leans around him, telling his coworkers to go ahead, that he’ll meet them at the bar.

"Hey, Jose," he says, looking pained. "I thought you might come by."

“Is that why you hid up in your office all day?”

Maluma sighs. "Let me tell you right now, I can’t give you anything."

"So buy me a drink instead."

Maluma blinks at him. “You drink now?”

“If you’re buying.”

  
—

“You know he caught her on horseback?”

Maluma’s coworker Anitta laughs loudly. “No! Where?”

“Midtown,” Balvin says. “I swear, all the tourists thought it was a show. But this one can really ride.” Balvin claps Maluma on the back.

Maluma eyes him sideways. Balvin sips his Shirley Temple and smirks.

“That’s why you’re always sneaking off to the police station!” says Maluma’s other coworker Becky.

They all laugh. Maluma starts to defend himself, but he’s interrupted. Myke comes back to the table, apologizing for being on the phone the whole time.

“Sorry,” he says. “The baby finally went to sleep. What’d I miss?”

“Awww,” Becky says, while Anitta says, “did you know Juan stole a horse from the NYPD?”

Maluma protests that he gave it back.

“Under duress, probably,” Myke says.

Balvin snorts, barely preventing Shirley Temple from coming out his nose. Becky and Anitta giggle to each other. Maluma rolls his eyes and looks at his watch.

“Okay,” he says. “It’s late. I’m gonna head out.”

“No, come on, stay!” Anitta says. “I mean, neigh!” She and Becky giggle harder. Maluma gives her a thumbs down.

“Let him go,” Myke says. “He has to wake up early to feed the horses.”

Maluma just sighs, shaking his head as the table laughs.

“I’m gonna head out, too,” Balvin says, putting down his cup. It still has the maraschino cherry in it. “Nice meeting all of you!”

The table says their goodbyes, tells him to come back for drinks sometime. Balvin promises to do so, and then he leaves.

Maluma is waiting for him outside.

“You can’t hang out with us anymore,” Maluma says, poking Balvin in the chest. He’s not really drunk, but he’s in a better mood than when Balvin invited himself to drinks. “You cause too much trouble.”

“Can’t be let out in public, hmm?”

“No. Let’s go back to my place.”

Balvin laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay, that was pretty good.”

—

Maluma lives in Brooklyn because he’s insufferable. His apartment always looks nice, too.

“Did you redecorate?” Balvin asks him when they get there.

“Is that really what you want to talk about?”

“No,” Balvin says, shaking his head. “I want to talk about work.”

“Oh my God,” Maluma says. “Shut up, oh my God. Come here, shut up.”

Maybe Maluma is drunker that Balvin thought he was. He kisses sloppily, all tongue.

He tastes like whisky sour, but Balvin doesn’t mind too much.

“Shut up,” Maluma says again, against his mouth, and Balvin isn’t saying anything, but he understands the sentiment.

They make it to the bedroom, and Maluma loosens his tie. He sits on the edge of the bed.

“Ey, I don’t mean to be, like, presumptuous,” he says. “But can you just blow me? It’s Tuesday. Or it was. Now it’s Wednesday. I don’t want to be late for work tomorrow. Or today.”

Balvin looks at him. He’s so serious. With his suit still on, the only thing out of place is his crooked tie. Balvin laughs, short and loud. “Yeah,” he says, nodding, still smiling. “Dale. Vamos, pues.”

He gets on his knees and gets to work.

Maluma sober is pretty loud. Maluma medium drunk sounds like porn, and Balvin really hopes his neighbors are deaf or even better, out of town.

By the time he makes him come, Balvin is about to explode. He hasn’t gotten this hard from giving head in, well, ever, probably.

“Come here, come here,” Maluma says, back in the game scarily fast. He pulls Balvin up and on top of him, sticking his hand down his pants.

Balvin makes an undignified sound when Maluma gets his hand around his dick. He bites his lip to prevent it from happening again.

Maluma spits on his palm, and it really shouldn’t be as hot as it is. Balvin closes his eyes and gives up his ego as Maluma jerks him off faster. He bucks his hips up, whining quietly, and comes all over Maluma’s hand.

“I appreciate you being efficient,” Maluma says when they’ve cleaned up.

Balvin laughs, blushing around the tops of his cheeks.

“Seriously,” Maluma says. “I want to go to sleep.” Then he adds, “you can stay, if you want.”

“Uh,” Balvin says, frowning. This is a curveball. Maluma doesn’t seem to care either way, already rolled over and snuggling his pillow.

Balvin strips back down to his underwear. He climbs into bed, puts a hand tentatively on Maluma’s side. He makes a happy noise, so Balvin moves closer, lines his body up parallel and wraps his arm around him. He falls asleep listening to Maluma snore softly.

—

Maluma’s alarm goes off oppressively early, so Balvin is the first one to the office the next day. Or later the same day, as Maluma pointed out to him over breakfast.

Nicky eyes him up and down when he gets there. “Nice shirt,” he says, suspiciously. “Looks familiar.”

Balvin ignores him.

“Nice pants,” he continues. “Rewearing outfits, are we now?”

“Do you have something to say to me?” Balvin asks him.

“Quid pro quo is illegal,” Nicky says.

Balvin is about to respond when Rafael comes in. On his way to his office, he stops, asking Balvin if he managed to convince the feds to not steamroll seven months of work.

“They’re giving us one back.”

Rafael swears.

“But they owe us,” Balvin adds. “They said they’re gonna throw us a bone on that arsonist.”

“I guess it could be worse,” Rafael sighs. “Good job, Balvin. Keep up with that contact of yours. Don’t let him slip away.”

Balvin nods as Rafael disappears into his office.

“That’s not the only bone that got thrown,” Nicky says when he’s gone.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Balvin says. He starts the paperwork for his cases, noting that they’ve been escalated pending RICO charges.

“Rico indeed,” Nicky says, scoffing. “Muy rico.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like y’all need to know that the working title for this was “[NYPD](https://www.instagram.com/p/CGLFy1ynDGM/?igshid=upjp30dt473m)/[fed](https://www.instagram.com/p/CFnpGSpnsbE/?igshid=393aqhszzv6g) jurisDICKtion fight.” Because I’m smart and subtle. Also, this is all RJ and Maria’s fault.


	18. "you don't see it?"

There’s a naked man walking through the hallway of Balvin’s new house.

“Aahhh!” he yells, but the man doesn’t react.

Not until Balvin tries to grab his shoulder does he turn and acknowledge that he's being spoken to. “You can see me?!” the naked man asks, equally horrified. Then he levitates, disappearing up through the ceiling.

Balvin passes out.

—

When he wakes up, the naked man is no longer naked. But he’s still in Balvin’s house, floating near him, and staring unnervingly.

Balvin jumps up, backing away from the home invader. “Get back!” he yells, and, for the second time, he tries to push him away.

“Huh,” the man says, looking down at Balvin’s hands sticking though his chest.

Balvin passes out again.

—

"Nicole!" Balvin yells through the phone to his realtor. "You sold me a haunted house!"

The no longer naked ghost sits on the sofa, watching the proceedings with an amused look on his face.

Nicole doesn't respond for a moment. Then she says, "I'm sorry, did you say a haunted house?"

—

"You really don't see him?" Balvin gestures at the ghost, who is salsa dancing in the middle of the living room and making a real show of it. Balvin wonders if he has ghostly music playing that's inaudible to human ears.

Nicole looks like she's trying very hard not to laugh at him. "Look," she says. "You bought the house. It's done. You have the deed. If you want to get rid of it, I'd be happy to list it again for you, but this," she gestures, coincidentally right at the ghost, who is still dancing, "is not it."

Balvin sighs.

—

"What's your name?" Balvin asks, sitting across from the ghost at the kitchen table. He has two mugs of coffee set out, mostly out of curiosity to see if the ghost will drink it or not.

"Maluma."

"Spooky," Balvin says.

Maluma frowns at him. "It's a stage name."

"Oh. A _spooky_ stage name?"

Maluma frowns harder. "No. What?"

—

Balvin adjusts pretty quickly to his spectral roommate. Although he's kind of disappointed that he doesn't have any superpowers.

"What," Maluma says as they're watching TV. "Being undead isn't cool enough for you?"

"I mean, you can't haunt people? Like, make their lives miserable?"

"I can't touch anything," Maluma says, and just to illustrate, he sticks his hand through Balvin's head.

"That was uncalled for," Balvin says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with [ accompanying artwork ](https://twitter.com/sprinkledpants/status/1317980922600357888?s=20) by the ever-talented Iztel!


	19. "i can't do this anymore"

“What if we stole the chicken, too, not just the money?” Maluma asks. He inhales his cigarette, ashing into the fountain. They're hiding in plain sight in the outdoor courtyard of the mall, hats and aprons hastily stuffed under a bush so the Frisby logos won't give them away as lowly employees and not potential money-spenders. Balvin thinks the aroma of grease and desperation might be a little telling, but so far security has left them alone.

“You know a fence who will buy, uh,” Balvin pauses, calculating the quantity in his head, “I don’t know, like, fifty kilos of raw chicken?”

“We don’t even need a fence,” Maluma says. “Just sell it at the market. No one will ask any questions.”

“So how are we gonna get it out of here?”

“Shit.” Maluma sighs.

“Come on,” Balvin says. “We should go back.”

“Five more minutes. Let me finish this.” Maluma holds up his cigarette.

Balvin nods, staring at the money in the fountain. He doesn’t even smoke, just pretends to. Maluma learned this the first day they met when he tried to bum a cigarette. “Smokers get more breaks,” Balvin had said. “So I’m a smoker.”

Maluma watches Balvin stick his hand in the fountain, reaching for a coin someone threw in.

"You're gonna fall in," he says.

"Shush."

"You're gonna fall in and drown, and then how am I gonna explain that to Karol?"

"Karol would love that. Then she could hire her boyfriend."

Maluma laughs. "I quit. I am not going back," he says. "Go steal all the money and all the chicken and meet me here."

"Why do I have to do all the stealing?"

"You have more experience than me," Maluma says, gesturing at the coins Balvin collected. It's about four hundred pesos worth.

"You know, if we’re really going to steal stuff, we should probably take the equipment. I bet someone would pay for the fryer or something."

"See," Maluma says, tapping the side of his head. "I knew you were the criminal mastermind."


	20. “did i ask?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’ve got Juan and Jose today because this story is part of RJ’s _Éramos solo friends_ universe. This is a microscopic fandom, so I’m assuming you’ve read it, but if not, [go do so. ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24474154)
> 
> Also, this is titled “Piqué y Shakira,” as in, “sólo somos amigos como Piqué y Shakira.”

Jose starts showing up in the mornings when school is in session, and the house is particularly quiet. The first time, he brought food, a silent offering, presented without explanation except that it made it okay to say thank you, come in, do you want to share this with me, it’s too much to eat by myself.

Now he brings food all the time, the kind of indulgences Juan used to eat before he had to set an example of moderation and self control for a tiny human. Jose pays his entry fee with beautifully crafted baked goods, and Juan makes sure to dispose of the evidence.

He’s not as slick as he thought he was.

“Papi, your tummy is softer! You’re getting better at hugs!”

Jose starts to bring fruit.

—

It’s not that he’s hiding Jose. There’s nothing to hide. They eat strawberries and pretend, for an hour or so, that they’re still the same people they were before a death and a divorce and five years of radio silence.

He just doesn’t want to have to explain that his most intimate relationship is less of a friendship and more of a delicate balancing act, saying just enough to make their meetings worth it and not too much to make them _not_ worth it.

He didn’t think participating in the world again would be this complicated. And it’s not, with other people.

Feid and Lenny are back in his life, almost weekly, either picking up or dropping off. They chat in the doorway about school and parenting and how crazy it is that they all ended up here. But mostly they talk about their kids. It's safe, an easy conversation that won't step on any toes, knock on any locked doors.

He has some questions, of course, namely how Feid and Lenny became _Feid-and-Lenny,_ but that would require open communication, mutual confidentiality. He’s not willing to give, only to take. And he’s not sure Lenny is willing to, either. He’s warmed up since Ivy and Itzel became best friends, but Juan can tell that he’s still on the fence.

It doesn’t matter. They pick up Ivy, and they leave. They come back again, but they leave.

Jose does not leave. Physically, he goes somewhere else sometimes, most of the time, but Juan thinks about him all of the time.

They’ve started up the same strange dance they’ve been doing for twenty years, circling around each another, perfectly parallel and so in sync that their legs never cross, no matter how close they get to each other, or how fast they move. When he was a teenager he used to chase Jose all over Medellín, trying to catch him at tiny clubs and birthday parties. He still feels like there’s a stage and a room full of people between them, but he doesn’t know which one of them is performing anymore.

Maybe they both are. He’s known Jose long enough to know that this isn’t the kind of thing he does for friends. Maybe one time, but Jose becomes a regular fixture at his house. When school lets out for the break, Juan doesn’t tell him to stop.

If it was anyone else, he’d have put an end to it a long time ago, either by telling him to go away or by inviting him into bed. But he won’t do either of those things, so he just opens the door and accepts the offering of — mango it is today, Itzel’s favorite.

—

His therapist is happy he’s reconnecting. Juan is not so sure it’s a good idea.

“And why is that?”

“It’s just not a good idea.”

His therapist tries to get him to elaborate, but he just shakes his head. Finally his therapist says, “didn’t you mention that this was a childhood friend of yours?”

“I don’t know if friendship is the right word.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it is. We’ve never slept together. But it doesn’t really feel... like that. There are expectations, I guess.”

“Whose?”

Juan rubs at his nose bridge. “Mine, I guess?”

“So why don’t you act on them? You’ve dated other people since your wife passed.” 

“I’m scared.”

His therapist nods. “Of?”

Juan doesn’t have a good answer for that. It used to be, “I’m scared Jose will disappear like he always does,” but he’s been coming over with snacks for almost a year. It used to be, “I don’t want to have to explain this to Itzel,” but Itzel spends so much time with Ivy that having two father figures seems almost more natural than not.

“I’m scared of ruining what I have now,” Juan says.

His therapist nods.

  
—

He’s pretty sure they would have continued their fruit eating ritual in perpetuity, if Justin hadn’t decided he needed to get married and ruined everything.

“You're coming to the wedding,” Jose says.

“No, I’m not,” Juan says, shaking his head.

“That wasn’t a question.”

“I can’t go,” Juan says sighing. “I don’t want to.”

“Why not?” Jose asks. He looks at him with big pleading eyes. “All your friends will be there.”

“I have three friends,” Juan says. “Or more like two and a half friends. Whatever. You’re one of them.” Jose starts to say something, but Juan talks over him, “I don’t know why Justin even invited me. I haven’t seen them for years.”

“That’s probably why?” Jose says before Juan can cut him off again. “Your friends love you, and they want to see you there.”

Juan is quiet for a moment. “And you?”

“Yeah,” Jose says, confused. “Of course.”

“Are you... my friend?”

Jose doesn’t break eye contact like Juan expects him to. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll always be your friend. Even,” he pauses.

Juan takes advantage of the pause because he won’t say it if he has to wait any longer. “Even if I want to kiss you sometimes?”

Jose smiles. “Especially then.”

Juan smiles back. “Let’s be friends, then. Friends who do this.”

He leans in and closes his eyes. Jose meets him halfway.


	21. "this, this makes it all worth it"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a little bit of violent description, but it's violence against zombies. Also, they're in Spain.

"Fifteen in the street!" Maluma yells, peering down at the zombies below them. “Fifteen!”

"I heard you," Balvin says. He hurries over to Maluma, lying down on the edge of the roof like snipers in the movies.

"I call the one on the left," Maluma says,

Balvin jostles him. "No fair. That's the clearest shot!"

Maluma doesn't respond. He just takes aim and fires, hitting the zombie square in the face. It takes a few more rounds to blow its brains out, and it falls to the ground, decapitated. Maluma turns his gun on the rest, taking out eight more, just to show he can.

"Good job," Balvin grumbles. Then he sets his sights on his own target, knocking its head off in one go.

"You brought the special ammo!" Maluma says immediately. "We said we were saving that!"

"You said that. I never actually agreed."

Maluma rolls his eyes. "Kill them all, then." He scoots back from the edge, gets up and starts walking back to the stairs. He's about to open the door when he hears noises coming from inside.

“Jose!”

Balvin is in the middle of sniping zombies. He turns to look only after he’s killed the rest on the ground. By that time, the door creaks open, and a partially decomposed hand sticks out.

Maluma grabs the door handle, opens the door a tiny bit, and then slams it shut as fast as he can. The hand pops off, lying on the ground, fingers still twitching. Maluma runs towards it and kicks it off the building.

“Gol!” he yells, doing a victory lap around the roof.

Balvin smiles at him. “Colombia uno, España cero.”

“Joder, tío,” Maluma says in an exaggerated accent, cracking himself up. A loud scraping sound makes him turn back to the door, suddenly serious. “Ah shit, it’s more than one.”

It’s way more than one. The door strains under the weight of a whole horde of zombies until it finally collapses, and then they come streaming out onto the roof.

Balvin turns his rifle on them and starts taking them out one at a time. He’s a good shot, but he only has so many bullets. Maluma has even fewer, having used more to kill the zombies on the street.

“We gotta go, parce,” Maluma says, when he’s officially out of bullets.

Balvin swears. “I liked this place,” he says, frowning.

“And I like being alive. Vámonos ya, pues.” He pulls a grenade out of his vest.

Balvin sighs, but he gathers up their haul and stuffs it into his gym bag. He starts running to the edge of the building, then climbs across the makeshift bridge they built to the next one, looking over his shoulder for Maluma, who isn’t far behind.

When Maluma is halfway across, he pulls the pin and throws the grenade into the midst of the zombies, then sprints the rest of the way. Balvin grabs the bridge and throws it down to the street, where it comes apart before it even hits the ground. He doesn’t think any of the surviving zombies will be smart enough to follow them, but it can’t hurt to be carful.

The grenade goes off, sending undead body parts everywhere. Maluma dodges a leg that comes flying at him as they run towards the next building.

It’s close enough that they can make the leap. Maluma backs up, gets a running start, and launches himself off the side. Balvin follows him, and they run from rooftop to rooftop until they reach their destination.

“Home” is an abandoned film studio where Maluma shot a music video once. They’d already looted everywhere else, collecting guns and ammo and bottles of water. But Maluma thought it might be worth checking out, if only for the costumes. It was starting to get colder, and the department stores downtown had been picked clean for months.

Maluma was right. They did find costumes. The studio was full of silicone zombies. Someone had been shooting a movie before the outbreak, and all the costumes were still there, draped over the furniture, hanging on the racks. The rest of the place was completely untouched.

They’d looked at each other, confused, until a noise caught their attention. A zombie limped in the door, drooling and calling for brains. They turned their guns on it, but it glanced around and saw the costumes, then turned around and left almost as quickly as it arrived, figuring the place was already too crowded to bother with.

Now they have all the zombie costumes stuffed to stand on their own and posed in the front of the building. Maluma likes to change them weekly, setting up new scenes. For Christmas he even did a nativity, zombie baby Jesus surrounded by zombie wisemen.

Balvin unpacks his gym bag. They managed to grab some good stuff out of the apartments before they blew them up. Canned food, bottled water, a new pair of shoes.

“What’s this?” Maluma asks, pulling out a small device with a cracked screen.

“It’s an iPod,” Balvin says, a little smugly. “Fully charged.”

Maluma’s eyes light up. He runs to their room and comes out with a pair of headphones. Slowly, solemnly, he plugs them in and looks to see what kind of music is on the iPod.

It’s mostly metal, lots of loud music, the perfect soundtrack to the apocalypse. But then he spies one oddball, sticking out like a sore thumb. He scrolls past it quickly. 

“Close your eyes,” he says immediately. “Come here.”

Balvin gives him a look, but he obeys. Maluma puts one earbud in his ear and starts the song.

Balvin recognizes the opening notes immediately. He opens his eyes, smiling, and blinking back tears.

Maluma feels himself tear up, too. They listen together, with their eyes closed, trying not to cry. For about four minutes, it feels like everything is going to be okay.

When the song stops, Balvin takes out the earbud. “We should turn it off,” he says. “Save the battery.”

Maluma nods. “We can listen again tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Balvin says. “But until then, you can sing it for me.” He looks at Maluma, smiling coyly.

Maluma laughs out loud, the request unexpected. Neither one of them has so much thought about singing until now. It’s always been about finding food, finding shelter, trying to stay alive together.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I can.” He closes his eyes, remembering how to sing. Then he opens them again, fixing Balvin with a look. “It’s been a while,” he warns. “And I’m no Juan Luis.” He giggles at his own joke.

“You’ll do great," Balvin says.

Maluma starts to sing. The words come back to him, buried in his memory somewhere from all the times he's heard the song. When he gets to the chorus, Balvin joins in.

_“Quisiera ser un pez...”_

_“Para tocar mi nariz en tu pecera."_


	22. "and neither should you"

“Babe,” Mona says. “We should get going.”

“Wait, you weren’t serious about that! We’re really going?”

Mona puts down her lipstick and turns. “Of course I was serious! Why would we not go?”

She’s met with an incredulous look. “You don’t think it’s weird to go to your ex’s birthday party?”

Mona resumes doing her makeup. “I’ve gone to every single one of his birthday parties since we were seventeen. It would be weird not to go,” she says when she’s done. She glances up, using the mirror to look behind her.

This time it’s an eye roll, complete with a crossed-arm pout. “I’m not going. You shouldn’t either.”

“Okay, have fun here by yourself. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Mona hears some angry spluttering, but she ignores it on her way out the door.

"Mona! Welcome!" Balvin greets her with a kiss on the cheek.

She grins and hands over his gift, a large box wrapped in the most colorful wrapping paper the store had. He smiles and thanks her, then adds it to the enormous pile in the living room. He leaves her with a glass of champagne, going to greet other guests arriving, and Mona takes a lap around the backyard.

Carolina spots her and waves. Mona hurries over to see the baby, sleeping peacefully despite all the noise. Mona coos over her, and Carolina and Rene exchange proud looks.

Mona spends the rest of the party catching up with friends. She's been away since work picked back up, and it's nice to see everyone in the same place. She's chatting with Manuela and Andrea when they're interrupted by a cake large enough to require several people to carry it making its way through the house and out into the yard.

Balvin jumps up and down, runs around like he was turning six and not thirty-six. He has to be herded back to the table to blow out the candles. He inhales, deeply, thanks to all that meditation, and blows them out. As soon as the danger of fire is eliminated, Maluma sneaks up behind him and smashes his face into the cake.

Balvin pops back up, wiping cake out of his eyes with one hand. With the other, he feels around for Maluma, who easily dodges him. Just before Balvin opens his eyes again, Maluma darts in close.

"You missed a spot," he says, smearing the icing on Balvin's bottom lip with his thumb.

Balvin catches his wrist, pulls him in to kiss, and then grabs an icing flower off the cake and smacks him gently in the face with it.

Nicole wisely intervenes before things deteriorate into a full-fledged food fight, and the servers start cutting up the cake, avoiding the face-shaped imprint Balvin left in the side.

Mona accepts a piece, strolling back into the house to eat. She sends a picture with the accompanying message, _you're missing out._

She doesn't get a response. She sighs.

"Everything okay?"

Mona looks up, and she makes eye contact with a very attractive stranger. Mona wonders if it would be horribly tacky to break up over the phone.


	23. "do we have to?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continued from [chapter eight.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817379/chapters/65638087) Also, there's some mention of domestic abuse and murder, but it's not too graphic.

The blood does come out pretty easily, so that's at least one of Maluma's problems solved. Now he just has to deal with the vampire in his house. And the fact that he might _also_ turn into a vampire.

"So," Maluma says, standing uncomfortably in his living room. He can't decide if he wants to be closer or farther from the door, so he paces around in a one-by-one meter square.

Balvin watches him from the sofa, an amused look on his stupid, vampire face.

“So,” Maluma says again. “How long until we know whether this is gonna happen or not?”

Balvin shrugs. “Do you feel any different?”

Maluma stops pacing. He thinks about it, and then he shakes his head no. 

“Then we just have to wait and see.”

“This is fucking awful.”

“You humans are so impatient,” Balvin says, rolling his eyes.

Maluma glares at him. “I meant the becoming a vampire thing. Not the waiting. But that sucks, too.”

“Haha, _sucks,”_ Balvin says. “That’s funny.”

“No, it’s not!” Maluma says. “None of this is funny! It’s so fucked up!”

“Hey, calm down,” Balvin says. He reaches an arm out towards Maluma, but Maluma dodges it. He goes and sits on the arm of the sofa instead and puts his face in his hands.

“How am I supposed to be calm?”

Balvin stands up and walks the length of the sofa over to him. “I really, really don’t think you’re going to turn into a vampire. I mean, I haven't turned that many people. But I doubt it.”

Maluma looks up at him. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Balvin sighs. “Okay,” he says. He goes and sits back down.

Maluma closes his eyes, puts his hands back over his face, and breathes deeply until he decides he’s probably not going to cry or throw anything. He turns to look at Balvin, sitting as far away from him as possible still on the same piece of furniture.

“Tell me, then,” he says. “If we’re just waiting.”

“Tell you what?”

“Who did you turn?”

“My sister.”

Maluma’s eyebrows shoot upwards. “Really?”

Balvin nods. He glances sideways at Maluma, and then he shifts his position to look at him head-on. He tucks one leg under himself on the sofa and lets the other hang off the side. Maluma turns, too, as best as he can, still perched on the arm.

“My sister had this boyfriend,” Balvin starts telling the story. “And he was a piece of shit. He used to hit her.” He speaks in short, angry sentences. None of the cool, calm charisma Maluma has come to associate with him is there. It’s just hate.

Maluma nods, trying to express his sympathy.

Balvin ignores him, continuing the story. “She got pregnant. And when she had the baby, it was like something in him snapped. Somehow he got it in his head that it wasn’t his. He kept accusing her of cheating, even though she didn’t. So one night he came home drunk and decided to kill her.”

Maluma watches Balvin’s eyes get darker. His mouth is closed, lips pressed together in a hard, angry line. He has his fists balled up where they’re resting on his legs.

“I was only going to visit because my mom made me take some things over to her for the baby. If I hadn’t been there...” he trails off, eyes closed.

Maluma waits. Balvin opens his eyes again, and Maluma looks at him. His eyes are almost completely black. Maluma shudders backward, almost falling off the arm of the sofa. Balvin blinks, and they go back to normal.

“Sorry,” he says. 

“It’s okay,” Maluma says, even though it’s not. 

Balvin looks away again and resumes talking, “I found her in the kitchen. He stabbed her and ran, left her bleeding out on the floor. And the baby was crying. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I couldn’t let her die."

Maluma nods silently.

Balvin turns back to him. He looks Maluma in the eye, and even though they’re back to being the right color, Maluma still feels a shiver go up his spine. “I killed her boyfriend,” Balvin says, and then he starts to cry.

Maluma doesn’t know what to do, so he just sits and watches Balvin, who cries quietly on the other end of the sofa. Maluma is fighting all his instincts, trying not to reach out and make things better. He sits on his hands, wondering what on earth he's gotten himself into. Normally, he'd move closer, rub his back, and say that it's all going to be okay. But he's not sure that a supernatural being who just confessed to murder would appreciate the gesture of sympathy.

Balvin eventually inhales, violently, sucking all his tears back down his throat. He paws at his face and then looks at his wet hands unhappily. He glances around Maluma's living room.

Maluma gets up and goes to get a box of tissues from the bathroom, glad to do something helpful.

"Thanks," Balvin says quietly when Maluma hands it to him. "Sorry. I didn't mean to, you know."

"It's fine," Maluma says. "I asked."

"Yeah," Balvin says. "I haven't told anyone that story in a long time."

Maluma sits down on the actual sofa. "I'd kill someone who hurt my sister, too," he says.

Balvin nods, and then he doesn't say anything else.

"So how's your sister now?" Maluma asks, more to fill the air than anything else. "And the baby?"

"The baby's dead," Balvin says in between blowing his nose.

Maluma blinks. "What?"

"She died, uh, I think twenty years ago? She was ninety."

"Oh," Maluma says. _"Oh._ So you really are... immortal?"

Balvin collects the pile of tissues and takes them to the kitchen. Maluma points under the sink to the trash can. Balvin washes his hands and answers at the same time. "No, I'm not immortal. I die if something kills me. Or someone. I'm kind of like a jellyfish, I guess."

"Huh," Maluma says, trying to remember the biology lessons he had in high school. He didn't go to class very often.

"Like I won't die of natural causes. Only if something intervenes."

"Mmm." Maluma nods his head. "Do you get older?"

Balvin comes back to the living room and sits down on the sofa again. He's slightly closer than he was before. "Not that I can tell," he says, holding a hand up and looking at it. "I'm not that old, though. I mean, comparatively."

Maluma looks at his hand, too. It looks like any other hand. On impulse, he leans over and touches it. Balvin jumps, but he doesn't pull away. His skin is cool to the touch, much cooler than it should be. Maluma shivers. Balvin turns to look at him. He grabs Maluma's hand, and Maluma's eyes widen, but Balvin just brings it to his chest. He presses Maluma's fingers flat against where his heart should be. Maluma doesn't feel a beat, and his eyes get even bigger. He's about to take his hand back when Balvin covers it with his own, pressing harder into his chest. Maluma feels the faintest pulse, so slow it's almost undetectable.

"Woah," Maluma says when he sits back.

Balvin smiles at him. His fangs are slightly less unnerving than they were earlier.

"Wait a minute," Maluma says. "Why didn't I notice this before?"

"I kept you distracted," Balvin says. "Redirected your attention."

"I don't think I appreciate you doing that."

Balvin shrugs. "You say that, but I think you do."

"Hmm." Maluma narrows his eyes suspiciously. "What else did you do to me?"

"Not much," Balvin says, and then, "really, I swear," when Maluma gives him another look.

"You didn't, like, charm me or whatever? I couldn't stop looking at you at dinner. And even in your pictures. You're very," Maluma pauses, thinking of the right word. "Captivating," he decides on.

"Captivating," Balvin repeats, and he's smirking.

"You did some kind of vampire magic on me," Maluma accuses.

Balvin puts his hands up. "I'm innocent," he says. "That's all you." He has no right to look so smug, Maluma thinks.

"But you," Maluma gapes at him. "You."

"Me nothing. That's all you."

Maluma closes his mouth, and as hard as he tries to fight it, he feels himself blushing. "There's no way," he mutters, shaking his head. "I don't believe you."

"The cool thing about the truth is that it's the truth whether you believe it or not," Balvin says, and his gloating face makes Maluma mutter some more.

"Okay," he says eventually. "Hypothetically, what _could_ you make me do, if you wanted to?"

Balvin thinks about the question. "It's not really making you do things," he says after a moment. "It's more like a suggestion. If you're already thinking about something, I can nudge you in the right direction. If you're not thinking about it, I can keep you distracted."

"So, what, could you make me go rob a bank if I'd watched _La casa de papel_ recently?"

"If you already had the idea, I could probably convince you that it was a good one."

"Do it," Maluma says. "Do it right now."

Balvin sighs. "What is this, show and tell?"

"Come on, just do it. I wanna see."

"Well, if you're aware of it, you're gonna fight me," Balvin says.

"I won't," Maluma says, shaking his head. "I promise. I just wanna see."

Balvin sighs again, and then he rolls his eyes. "Okay. Once. Look at me."

Maluma looks into his eyes, and they don't seem out of the ordinary. They're brown, kind of warm brown, nice, nothing wrong with them. Maluma looks harder, wondering when he's going to feel the mind control start. Then his gaze starts to drift to the right, towards the back of the sofa. It looks much warmer than Balvin, soft and comfortable, perfect to lie down and close his eyes for a moment, just to get some rest, to forget this whole strange night and go to sleep.

Maluma yawns, and he starts to sink down into the sofa, cuddling up against a pillow. His eyelids start to feel heavier, and he blinks slower, keeping his eyes closed for longer in between. Then he realizes what's going on.

"Hey!" he says, snapping back upright. "What the fuck!"

"You asked me to do it," Balvin says.

"Yeah, I know, but what the fuck!"

Balvin shrugs. "You're tired," he says. "You want to go to sleep."

"Yeah, because it's," Maluma pauses, checking the time, "four in the morning! What?"

"Huh," Balvin says. "Time flies."

"You sure this wasn't just more vampire voodoo? Lull me to sleep so you can eat me?"

"Again, I will never eat you. You taste _so bad."_ Balvin shudders.

Maluma rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, enough with that. But you didn't do anything else? Promise?"

"I promise. On, whatever you want me to swear on, I've only ever, A," Balvin holds up a finger, "distracted you from figuring out I was a vampire, and, two, tried to make you go to sleep. That's it."

Maluma eyes him sideways. "Okay."

"Although," Balvin says, looking at the time again, "it's probably time for a third. I think we're in the clear."

Maluma turns to look sharply. "What?"

"I don't think you're going to turn into a vampire. So it's time for you to forget about this whole thing."

"Oh," Maluma says, and he can't hide the disappointment in his voice. "Do we have to?"

Balvin looks stunned. "You don't want to forget about this?"

"I don't know," Maluma says. "Maybe not? Why? Are you gonna come hunt me down and kill me later if I don't let you brainwash me?"

"No! Why would I do that?"

"Because I might tell people about you?"

"Are you going to tell people about me?" Balvin asks, and Maluma shakes his head no. "Well, there you go. And no one would believe you, anyway."

"Okay," Maluma says. "So."

"So."

"So."

Balvin frowns at him. "So what?"

"So, maybe don't do it?"

"I," Balvin says, and then pauses. "Okay, if that's what you want. But." He doesn't finish the thought. Maluma inclines his head, waiting for the rest.

"What?"

"Nothing. Be safe. I'm gonna go, I guess, then. Good night. Nice to meet you."

Maluma bursts out laughing. "What, that's it?"

"What, what? What else are you expecting?"

"I don't know. Are you gonna call me later? Am I going to see you again?"

Balvin stares at him, mouth frozen half-open. "Uh," he says. "Do you want me to?"

"I'm apparently so into you that I thought it was vampire mind control. So yeah, you should call me."

Balvin blinks, and maybe it's just the shadows or the lack of sleep, but Maluma thinks he can see him blush a little bit.

"Okay," Balvin says hesitantly. "I guess I'll do that."

He leans in and kisses Maluma on the cheek. His lips are too cool against Maluma's skin, but Maluma is expecting it.


	24. “are you kidding me?”

“El Chavo and Quico.”

Maluma shakes his head no.

“Mario and Luigi.”

Maluma rolls his eyes and shakes his head no.

“Messi and Ronaldo.”

Maluma sighs and shakes his head no.

“Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.”

“Are you going to make me be Kim?”

Balvin looks pointedly at Maluma’s ass. Maluma shakes his head no.

“So I guess Jlo and Marc Anthony are also out?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Shakira and Piqué?”

Maluma throws a pillow at Balvin’s head. Balvin dodges it, but he also starts to slowly retreat. When he’s a fair distance away, he says, “Karol and Anuel?”

Maluma runs after him and tackles him onto the floor. Sitting atop Balvin’s middle, he says, “you have to be Karol. You can’t grow a beard.”

Balvin laughs. “Scariest Halloween costume ever.”


	25. “sometimes you can even see”

“Oh my God,” Carolina says, holding out her arm. “Oh my God, look.”

Balvin looks. There’s a shape starting to appear on her inner forearm. They both watch as a glowing outline traces itself onto her skin. It starts at the bottom, curves upwards, shoots out and comes back in before repeating the same pattern on the other side. It flashes once and then disappears.

“It kind of looks like bullhorns,” Carolina says. She’s practically shaking out of excitement.

“I think it looks like a uterus,” Balvin says sullenly. He doesn’t actually think it looks like a uterus, but he’s feeling petty. And jealous.

“You’re just jealous,” Carolina calls him out right away.

Balvin sighs. “Sorry.”

Carolina pats his shoulder. “Yours will show up. Just be patient.”

“Nah. I’m going to die alone,” Balvin says. 

“Don’t be so dramatic. Just be happy for me, okay?”

Balvin nods, scowling. Carolina flicks him in the ear, and he loses the scowl.

—

Carolina’s soulmate turns out to be a guy who calls himself Bull Nene. Balvin thinks the universe is so stupid sometimes.

He glares at his own forearm, but the only thing he sees are tattoos.

“Hey,” Carolina says over the phone. “There’s someone we think you should meet.” 

Balvin rolls his eyes, glad Carolina can’t see him. Not even a month since they met, and they’re already a “we.” Stupid soulmates.

“Okay,” he says warily. “Why?”

“Rene says he knows someone who got a rainbow mark.”

Balvin glances at his hair in the mirror, currently dyed pink and blue. Last week it was green. The week before that it was an actual rainbow. “Hmm.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s an ‘I didn’t know they came in colors.’”

Carolina sighs. 

“Sure, I guess.”

—

Balvin eyes the guy up and down. He has no right to be so good-looking, he decides. His nose is too big. His beard doesn’t match his hair. There’s a scar on his cheek. And yet.

“Hi,” Maluma says. “Nice to meet you. I think we’re soulmates.”

“What makes you so sure about that?” Balvin has gone thirty-five years without finding his. He’s not going to get his hopes up just because this guy is handsome and smells nice and is warm to the touch as he gets closer and grabs Balvin’s arm. Balvin’s heart speeds up.

“Look,” Maluma says, pointing.

Balvin looks. There are four very small glowing lines on his arm, partially hidden by his tattoos.

“Are you kidding me?!” he yells. “How was I supposed to see that?! What even is it? Tally marks?”

“Eleven eleven,” Maluma says calmly. He looks down at his own arm. The rainbow is in technicolor, glowing softly.

“Oh,” Balvin whispers, in awe. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

Maluma smiles at him. Balvin smiles back.

—  
  


Balvin still thinks it’s unfair that his mark was not more obvious.

“So much wasted time,” he laments.

Maluma pats his arm consolingly. “But we found each other,” he says. “That’s the important part.”

“Yeah, but you can barely see this thing! I want a refund.”

“I don’t think that’s how this works.”

Balvin huffs. “Fine.”

“Come here. Let’s do an experiment. I heard they glow in the dark.”

“Ooh,” Balvin says, curiosity piqued.

  
—

Maluma’s experiment is inconclusive, due to a lack of data. As it turns out, there are more fun things to do in the dark with your soulmate than stare at your arm.


	26. “how about you trust me for once?”

"I found a date for you," Cazzu says. She's bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Anitta looks at her, one eyebrow quirked upwards. "Really?"

"Yeah, he's perfect!"

Anitta forces herself to smile. "Oh?"

"He's cute. You'll like him. Trust me."

Anitta freezes the smile on her face. "Okay, babe. Sure."

—

Anitta sighs as she gets ready. She wasn't even planning on going, but Cazzu called her and asked if she was excited, and Anitta didn't have the heart to say no. So here she is, unenthusiastically pulling on comfortable pants and a shirt that is technically athleisure but looks nice enough to pass as real clothes. The guy picked a new restaurant, so if nothing else, she'll at least get to try something interesting. She sighs again, swiping on some mascara, and then heads out the door.

"I'm meeting someone," Anitta tells the host. She tries not to sound so tired. The host nods and lets Anitta into the dining room. She glances around, seeing someone waving.

"Oh my God," Anitta says, brightening up considerably. "What are you doing here?"

"Hello," Maluma says, grinning. "I think your friend misunderstood some things."

Anitta puts a hand over her mouth, laughing. "Yeah, I think you're right about that."

"Come on, sit down," Maluma says. He pulls out Anitta's chair for her.

"You sure? We don't have to do this."

"I'm happy to have dinner with you. Just don't try to take me home afterwards."

Anitta sets her things down. "I wouldn't dare."

Maluma winks.

—

Balvin picks both of them up at the end of their date. Anitta gets in the back of their car, happily wine-drunk and in a much better mood than she was at the start of the night.

"Jose, you're so lucky," Anitta says, smacking a kiss on his cheek when he drops her off at home. "This one's a keeper." She points at Maluma with a wobbly finger.

"I know," Balvin says. He smiles at Maluma, and Anitta sighs wistfully.

"Okay, good night. I'm going to go eat ice cream by myself. Enjoy being in love."

"Be safe," Maluma says.

Anitta waves goodbye as they drive away. Then she pulls out her phone. She has four messages from Cazzu.

_How did it go_

_Did you like him_

_Tell me when you get home safe_

_I want to know everything call me_

Anitta thinks about it for a minute, and then she calls Cazzu before she can talk herself out of it. "Babe," Anitta says, and it comes out more slurred than she intended. "Can you come over?"

—

"Are you okay?" is the first thing Cazzu asks when she arrives. Anitta waves her over to sit on the couch.

"Better now," Anitta says when Cazzu is next to her. "Ice cream?"

"No thanks." Cazzu looks confused. "Was everything okay? Did your date go well?"

"It was fine. You were right, he's cute."

Cazzu nods encouragingly. "So? Tell me."

"We drank a lot of wine," Anitta says, and she giggles. She eats another scoop of ice cream.

"Okay," Cazzu says. "That's good, right?"

Anitta shrugs. "I guess. We got too drunk to drive, so his boyfriend picked us up."

Cazzu's face goes through a series of expressions, first shock, then confusion, then realization. "Oh, oh my God. I misunderstood. I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," Anitta says, waving her hands in the air expansively. Some of the ice cream goes flying off her spoon. "Oops," she giggles, and then waves off Cazzu's offer to help clean up. "I didn't want to go on a date with him anyway. I only did it because you told me to go on a date with him. I'd rather go on a date with someone else." Anitta looks Cazzu in the eye.

"Uh."

"That someone is you, by the way."

Anitta boops Cazzu on the nose with her spoon, leaving a dollop of rocky road. Cazzu wrinkles her nose, then wipes off the ice cream with her thumb and licks it.

Anitta laughs. "Let's go on a date," she says.

"Right now?"

"We have ice cream," Anitta says solemnly. Then she leans in, whispering as if she was sharing a secret. "And I have HBO. Trust me, that's the best kind of date."

"Okay," Cazzu says, starting to smile. "I trust you."

—

"Maybe we should stop calling each other marica," Balvin suggests when they get home. "I think that's where some of this confusion comes from."

Maluma doesn't respond. Balvin looks over and sees that he's fallen asleep in the passenger's seat. Balvin leans across the arm rest and nudges him.

"Ey, sleeping beauty, wake up, we're home."

Maluma groans and then turns away from him.

"Oye! Wake up!"

Maluma startles awake. "No need to yell," he grumbles. "I heard you, marica. We're home. Let's go to bed. I'm tired."  


Balvin just shakes his head and gets out of the car. He'll bring it up another time.


	27. "give me that"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pornography alert. I wasn't even planning to write anything sexy for this challenge, but lo and behold, this makes two.

"You should top me."

Maluma just about chokes. Coughing and trying not to inhale milk or cereal, he splutters, "now?"

Balvin rolls his eyes. "No. Obviously not right now. But at some point."

"Sure," Maluma says, nodding, his reflexes making him answer before he has a chance to really think about it. What else is he supposed to say? He stares incredulously, wondering why this request has come up now, over cornflakes, and not say, yesterday, when they were actually having sex. Balvin also nods, a serene expression on his face like he didn't just roll up to the kitchen counter and ask to get fucked.

Maluma looks down at his bowl, thinking about what else he should say. He settles on nothing. They're only sort-of dating, and up until this point, Maluma was pretty good with that arrangement. But now he's worried that he is only sort-of dating a lunatic. His suspicions increase when Balvin says, "great, thanks, glad we had this talk," and disappears out the door. Presumably, he's going to work, but maybe he's going to go commit arson. Maluma doesn't actually know.

— 

Maluma's dick, on the contrary, has no problems with Balvin's lack of regard for social mores. "You should top me" plays on repeat in his head the whole day, and he squirms uncomfortably at his desk. He hasn't thought this about sex this much since he was a teenager. And besides, teenage him didn't have a stupidly hot sort-of boyfriend with whom to do the aforementioned sex. This is much, much worse.

Maluma gets up and goes for a walk outside, hoping that no one will notice that he is secretly a slobbering sex fiend. He buys a coffee from the vendor near his office and seemingly pulls off the normal person act. The vendor takes his money and smiles at him and does not call the police. Maluma says thank you, accepts his coffee, and runs away.

He gets through the rest of the day like that. He finds the most boring, uninteresting tasks a monkey could do and writes a script to automate them. Then he goes and buys another coffee.

By the time he finishes work, he is highly caffeinated and moderately jittery. He bounces his leg very fast on the train home, drawing some suspicious looks from the nearby passengers. They look away when he makes eye contact, though. When he gets home, he sits on the couch for half a second before standing up again and changing into gym clothes. He's going for a run. It's the only chance he has of falling asleep.

It doesn't help all that much, but at least it gives him something else to think about for a while.

— 

Balvin, who is, perhaps, the misanthropic type of lunatic, doesn't call him for ten days. Normally, Maluma would take it in stride. They're both adults who do things, but now Maluma really just wants to do adult things. He paces around with his phone in his hand, wondering if he should send another message. Balvin doesn't ever ignore him, but Maluma has gotten good enough at sort-of dating to figure out when his messages mean "I'm going to invite you over soon," and "I'm just replying out of courtesy," and all he's gotten recently are the second type.

Maluma is debating just hiding his phone from himself and going to jerk off when it buzzes again.

_You free today?_

That’s about as clear a message as any, so Maluma does a little victory dance and goes to take a shower.

Balvin shows up an hour or so later. He’s wearing joggers and a hoodie, both of which are several sizes too big for him. Maluma tries not to jump his bones in the foyer.

“How’ve you been?” Balvin asks him when they sit down in the living room.

Maluma says something other than “very horny for you,” and Balvin nods.

“Sorry I haven’t been around,” he says, and Maluma is about to wave him off when he keeps talking, “I’ve been sick.”

Maluma’s expression changes immediately. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Depression,” he says, and Maluma blinks. This is uncharted territory. They haven’t shared such personal details before.

“Oh,” Maluma says. “I’m sorry.”

Balvin shrugs. “It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. But I’m not really here to talk to you about that. You’re not my shrink. Actually, I think that would be illegal.”

Maluma thinks about that for a minute. “What... oh.”

Balvin winks at him, and Maluma laughs.

“You sure you’re good? We don’t have to, you know. If you’re not feeling well.”

Balvin looks him up and down. “I’m feeling fine. I would like to kiss you now.”

Maluma smiles and does just that. He climbs on top of him, straddling his lap and pushing his hoodie up, feeling the skin under his clothes. It’s smooth and warm. He runs his hands over Balvin’s chest, grabs a nipple, and pinches it lightly. Balvin sucks his breath in.

“Do you still want me to top you?”

Balvin whines, nodding quickly and biting his lip. Maluma feels a shudder go down his spine, heat starting to pool in his lower stomach.

“Come on, then. We should, uh, go the bedroom.” It’s hard to talk all of a sudden.

He gets off of Balvin’s lap, grabbing his hand and pulling him up with him. Balvin doesn’t give his hand back when they stand up.

Maluma’s apartment is not that big, but the walk to the bedroom seems to stretch out infinitely. He stops just before he opens the door, turning to press Balvin up against the wall and kiss him again.

Balvin makes a lot of little sounds, quiet moans and sharp inhales. Maluma can feel his dick through his pants, pressing hard against his thigh. He makes a louder noise.

Maluma backs off, pulling at Balvin’s clothes until he’s naked. Then he gets on his knees.

He runs his tongue up and down Balvin’s dick a couple of times, sucks on the head before swallowing down as much as he can. Balvin groans, and this is the loudest Maluma has heard him in a while.

He bobs up and down a few times until he feels Balvin’s fingers running through his hair. Balvin pushes his head down, and normally he would resent that, but he just relaxes his throat and tries to take more of his cock.

Balvin moans very loudly, by far the noisiest he’s ever been, and Maluma congratulates himself silently since can’t really talk with a dick down his throat.

Balvin takes his hand off Maluma’s head, and Maluma grabs it, pulling him into the bedroom. Balvin sits on the edge of the bed, waiting while Maluma fishes around in his drawer for condoms and lube. He looks like a patient at the doctor’s office, Maluma thinks, and he smiles to himself.

“What’s so funny?” Balvin asks him.

“You look like you’re waiting for the doctor,” Maluma tells him.

Balvin raises an eyebrow. “Are you trying to role play?”

Maluma laughs out loud. “No,” he says. “But shelve that thought.”

Balvin laughs nervously. Maluma sets the condoms down and grabs the bottle of lube.

“You gotta relax,” Maluma says, eyeing him still sitting the same.

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, okay,” Maluma scoffs.

He pushes Balvin flat onto his back, kissing him slow and deep, a lot of tongue. Maluma moves his legs so they’re not sideways anymore, and he works his way lower, leaving a sloppy trail of kisses down his stomach until he reaches his dick again.

Balvin whines, back to being quiet, when Maluma runs his tongue around the head of his cock. He sucks it into his mouth, and at the same time, he slicks his fingers up.

He glances up, trying to gauge the situation. Balvin’s has his eyes closed, mouth open, panting softly. Maluma slowly starts pressing his fingers upwards.

Balvin’s eyes open immediately, but he nods, and Maluma keeps going, trying to be gentle, but also thinking that he might die if he doesn’t get to feel Balvin pretty soon.

When he starts to move to the same rhythm, Maluma reaches for a condom. Balvin watches him silently, eyes wide as he rolls it onto his dick and lines himself up.

“You good?” he asks.

Balvin nods furiously, and Maluma slides slowly into him, watching his face.

Balvin makes a noise between a moan and a whine, eyebrows furrowed, although Maluma can’t tell if it’s pain or pleasure, and he’s not making any other noises.

“You still good?”

“Uh,” Balvin mumbles, eyes screwed shut. “Hnnngh.”

“You gotta tell me,” Maluma says. “Does it feel good if I move?”

He shifts his hips slightly, and Balvin makes a better sounding noise.

“Good? Yes?”

Maluma does it again, and Balvin nods, moaning outright this time.

“You can make some noise, you know,” Maluma says. “You like to pretend you’re the strong silent type, but I’m trying to make you call me daddy.”

Balvin blushes, red coloring all over his cheeks to his ears. But he’s laughing, too.

“You think I’m kidding,” Maluma says, and he rolls his hips again, repeatedly.

Balvin says “oh,” and he puts an arm over his face.

Maluma moves it, bearing his weight down on his wrist so he can’t move it back. He leans in closer so they’re almost chest to chest. Balvin pulls one leg up, wrapping it around Maluma’s waist. 

“Oh, fuck, nnnnngh,” Balvin says, and Maluma takes that as a very good sign. He reaches down in between them and wraps his hand around Balvin’s dick. That elicits a longer string of curse words.

Maluma jerks him off at the same pace and starts to think about his own cock. He really wants to come, and Balvin is not making things easier. He’s still not loud, but he’s starting to shudder and throw his head backward, panting.

“Touch yourself,” Maluma says, and Balvin looks up at him, eyes wide. “Make yourself come. I want to see you.”

He does moan at that, pretty loudly, and Maluma braces one hand beside him while he fucks him in earnest.

Balvin is biting his lip, eyes screwed up when Maluma angles his hips just right. He yells, actually yells, and Maluma does it over and over and over again. Balvin sounds like he’s ascending to another dimension. It’s very loud, almost poetic in its incoherence. Maluma feels him start to come, his stomach tense, muscles trembling, and he lets himself follow shortly.

—

“So you didn’t call me daddy,” Maluma says.

Balvin rolls his eyes.

“It’s okay. There’s always next time.”

“Says who?” Balvin asks.

Maluma looks at him sharply. “Oh,” he says. “Well.”

“I’m kidding, relax. I, uh. I liked that.” Balvin is blushing again. Maluma never noticed how often he does that.

“Good,” Maluma says. “I did, too.”

“Yeah. Good.” Balvin stands up, and he acts like he’s going to leave, but he keeps pausing. He has his underwear on but nothing else, sitting on the edge of the bed again.

“Hey,” Maluma says. “You should stay.”

“What? No,” Balvin says. “Really?”

“Yes, really. And tomorrow,” Maluma hesitates before continuing, "there's a thing I was going to ask if you wanted to go to."

"A thing."

"Yeah, my friend, she's an artist. And she's having a gallery opening. I don't know if you like art. But she said I could bring a date. I mean, it's not like they're going to check the list. But you know. You can come. With me. If you want to."

Balvin looks at him for a moment. Then he starts to smile. "I like art," he says.

"Good," Maluma says.

"Good."

"So you should stay. And come with me tomorrow."

"Okay," Balvin nods. "I'll do that."

He gets back in bed. Maluma turns the light off. Before they go to sleep, Balvin leans over and kisses him good night.


	28. "do i have to do everything here?"

“So how did you two meet?” Balvin's cousin asks politely.

Balvin waffles. “Uh,” he says eventually, “at work.”

The cousin’s eyebrows go up. “You work together?”

“No,” Maluma jumps in, “I was just in the building... delivering things. I deliver things.”

Balvin tries not to groan outwardly. “Yes. He’s a delivery person.”

“Cool,” says the cousin and then disappears back to the buffet line for more food. Maluma starts to follow, but Balvin grabs his arm.

“'I deliver things'?" he asks, frowning deeply.

"What," Maluma says, looking over Balvin's shoulder longingly towards the buffet. "We didn't discuss what my fake career would be."

"You don't need a fake career," Balvin says.

"Why not?" Maluma protests. "Am I your house husband?"

Balvin sighs. "We're not married," he says, rolling his eyes. "Just stick to the plan. You're my date for the wedding rehearsal and the wedding. That's it."

Maluma grins. "Yeah, but we could have so much more fun if you'd let me."

Balvin frowns again. "Don't overthink it, okay? Just follow my lead."

Maluma shrugs. "Okay, sweetie."

"Don't—" Balvin starts, but he's cut off by the arrival of the bride- and groom-to-be, one of whom happens to be his ex, and the other of whom happens to be related to him by blood. He makes eye contact by accident, and then, in a panic, he grabs Maluma by the lapels and kisses him on the mouth.

Maluma, to his credit, rolls with the punches. He cups Balvin's face with his hand, closing his eyes and sighing. Balvin glances sideways, happy to note that the future Mr. and Mrs. are both glaring at him. He closes his eyes, and, just for show, he sticks his tongue down Maluma's throat.

"Oh, wow," says Balvin's cousin, returned from the buffet, before making a sharp turn towards another table.


	29. “back up!”

“Oh, shit, back up, back up,” Balvin says, pushing Maluma away. His hand slips against his wet chest. “Shit, shit, hurry up, they’re coming back.”

Maluma dives under the water, swimming to the other end of the pool. Balvin climbs onto a float, trying to pretend like he’s merely enjoying the day and wasn’t just making out with his maybe no longer ex-boyfriend.

“Hey!” Sky says cheerfully, returning with a six pack of beer and a bottle of Postobon. “Where’d Juan go?”

Balvin takes the Postobon and gestures in what he hopes is a disinterested and lackadaisical manner towards the far end of the pool. Maluma does a flip turn and swims back towards them.

“Exercising, huh?” Sky says, and Balvin can’t tell if he’s suspicious or not.

He’s saved from having to answer the question, rhetorical or otherwise, by Feid and Mosty, who come bearing more beer. Feid sets them on the table and then cannonballs into the water. He narrowly avoids landing on top of Maluma, who hasn’t stopped swimming laps. 

Maluma pops up, treading water and yelling at Feid, who responds by splashing him.

“Fight, fight, fight!” chants Sky, swimming over to make things worse.

Mosty backs him up, and the whole thing somehow deteriorates into a game of chicken. Sky, who is apparently stronger than he looks, hoists Feid up onto his shoulders and issues a challenge to anyone brave enough to try to knock them over. 

“I’m a pacifist,” Mosty says, sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet dangling. But that doesn’t stop him from yelling encouragement and insults from the sideline when Sky walks them over to Balvin’s float, and Feid pulls him off of it.

“I don’t want to do this,” Maluma says, but Balvin climbs onto his shoulders anyway, getting ready to square off against Feid.

Feid is a squirrelly little fuck. He dodges all of Balvin’s attempts to muscle him into submission, slipping out from his grasp several times. 

Balvin accuses him of oiling up with tanning oil beforehand. Feid sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry.

“Don't be a sore loser,” Sky says, moving Feid out of the way of yet another attack.

Finally Maluma, getting tired of how much Balvin weighs and voicing as much, changes up the tactic. He forgoes technique for brute force, charging at Sky and launching Balvin at Feid. Unfortunately, he didn’t communicate this plan to Balvin beforehand, so he gets caught around Maluma’s neck when he’s supposed to jump. He falls, taking Maluma down with him. They sink to the bottom of the pool.

“That’s an own goal!” Mosty says, cracking himself up. Feid and Sky high five each other.

“We concede,” Maluma says. “Good job.”

“No we don’t!” Balvin says immediately. “Rematch!”

“We concede,” Maluma repeats himself and rolls his eyes. “I’m not doing that again.”

“Why not? It was fun!”

“For you!” Maluma rubs his shoulders.

“Don’t be like that,” Balvin says. “One more time.”

“No,” Maluma says forcefully.

Balvin pouts.

Sky raises an eyebrow at the back and forth. “Even broken up you still sound like an old married couple.”

Mosty coughs into his beer, unsuccessfully trying to stifle his laughter. Feid doesn’t even try.

Balvin feels himself getting hot around the neck. Maluma is frowning, trying to think of something to say back.

“Yeah, well,” he says lamely. “Whatever.”

Sky smirks. “Salo and Alejo, undefeated champs!”

“You just wait,” Balvin says. “There’s going to be a round two.”

Maluma groans.


	30. “just say it”

“What are you smiling about?” Manuela asks.

“Nothing,” Maluma says, locking his phone.

“Let me see!” She grabs for the phone, but he holds it out of her reach.

“No, stop. It’s nothing!”

“So if it’s nothing let me see!”

Maluma rolls his eyes. “It’s nothing. It’s just a funny comment from a friend.”

“Let me see,” Manuela says again, pulling on his arm until she forces him to bend his elbow. He tries to resist, but she pries the phone out of his hands, unlocking it and scrolling though his Instagram comments.

She reads, aloud, “qué hp más lindo,” “qué bonito,” “papasote,” “heart-eyes emoji.”

“See?” Maluma says. “It’s funny!”

“Funny,” Manuela repeats back to him. “Funny comments from your friend.”

“What?” Maluma asks, genuinely confused.

Manuela shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says, putting up her hands and making a face. “Nothing at all. Let me ask you. Does your friend like all your pictures?”

Maluma thinks about it. “No, not really. But sometimes he likes the stuff Tes posts. But usually only pictures of me.”

“That’s normal.”

Maluma frowns. “What are you implying?”

Manuela blinks slowly. “I said ‘that’s normal.’ If you read deeper meaning into it, that’s on you.”

Maluma frowns harder. “You’re up to something,” he says.

Manuela shrugs dismissively and makes her excuses to leave. She practically sprints off to the other room, in a rush to call Andrea. She’ll get a kick out of this.


	31. "i trust you"

Balvin wakes up with a start. The door flies open and the light turns on, and he squints against the sudden brightness. There's a person, probably a man from his size and shape, wearing a hockey mask standing over his bed. Balvin looks to his right instinctively, and Maluma is not in bed.

"Oooh, so scary," Balvin says, rolling his eyes. "Happy Halloween to you, too."

He doesn't get a response. The person in the mask tilts his head and moves closer, drawing a long knife from behind his back.

Balvin frowns. "Okay, you're taking it a little too far."

The man tilts his head to the other side and gets even closer, holding the knife out in front of him. It's dripping ominously red.

Balvin leaps out of bed, not taking any chances anymore. He bolts towards the door to the bedroom, feeling his heart pounding in his ears. He throws the door open, and there are three more people in masks standing behind it. They grab him, holding his arms down while one of them shoves a bag over his head. Balvin struggles against them, kicking his legs out as hard as he can, but the four of them overpower him. They tie his arms and legs together before lifting him up in the air and carrying him out of the house. He hears a muffled conversation, but he can't make out what they're saying. They're not speaking Spanish, he's pretty sure. It sounds a lot rougher than that, more consonants and harsher tones. Balvin tries to yell, but someone wraps something around his mouth over the bag, and he's effectively gagged.

They load him in what he assumes is the back of a car. They're gentler than he was expecting them to be, but he doesn't have time to dwell on that as he hears the slam of the trunk, and the dark world gets even darker. He hears the engine turn over, and then they start to drive.

He kicks around as best he can, trying to shed the ties. His wrists are not bound tightly, but they used several zip ties, and he can't break them. His legs are tied with something else, and he manages to get it to loosen, although it won't come off completely. He kicks fruitlessly against the walls of the car.

Eventually, he quiets down, trying to think of an escape plan, but he has no idea who these people are or what they want with him. They didn't hurt him, so his first thought is that it's a kidnapping for ransom, which is probably the best possible outcome for this situation, he realizes. He decides that he's going to cooperate until he has enough information to make a better plan. Then he wonders if they have Maluma, too, and if he's going to be taken to the same place.

They drive for what seems like hours, but Balvin isn't sure how reliable his sense of time is. He tries to count the seconds, but over a thousand and he starts to lose track. He does remember that they make several turns. First right, then left, then another left, then a right, then another left, and another left, and another left. He tries not to get any of them mixed up, but it's hard. It also feels like they go up and down several hills, but that's not especially helpful given that Medellín is a city in the mountains.

When they stop, he braces himself for whatever is coming next. He hears the trunk opening, and he's picked up and hoisted onto his feet. They take off whatever was binding his legs together and nudge him in the back. He starts walking. He hears the crunch of gravel under his feet and the sound of more footsteps around him. He tries to guess how many people. He thinks maybe six, but it could be more. They seem to be coming and going.

Suddenly, he feels someone on either side of him. They grab both of his arms, and he tenses up, but they keep him moving forward. Then he feels stairs beneath him, and he hesitantly descends, feeling blindly with his toes for the end of each step. His kidnappers keep him from falling on his face.

The ground becomes flat again, and he's directed into what he assumes is a chair. They cut the zip ties on his wrists only to tie him to the chair itself. They do the same to his legs, and then, finally, they take the bag off his head.

He's in someone's basement, that much is clear. He's tied to a chair in front of a TV. The screen is black, but it starts to flash, then play black and white static. Eventually, it sorts itself out, and a video starts.

He sees Enzo on screen, and his heart leaps into his throat. The camera stays on him for a while, just standing in one place, tail swishing slowly. Balvin fears the worst. Then someone off-camera tells Enzo to sit, and Balvin startles, badly. On-screen, Enzo does as he's told. The voice tells him to lie down, and he does. Whoever it is off-camera directs Enzo through all the tricks he knows, and Balvin feels his heart pounding in his chest, dreading the end of the video. He strains against his restraints, trying to reach the screen, even though he knows that won't help, that this pre-recorded, and whatever fate met Enzo has already happened. He almost wants to close his eyes.

Finally, the disembodied voice calls Enzo over, and he trots off camera. Balvin is shaking, unable to tear his eyes off the screen until he hears a door open near him. He turns to look. Enzo comes running over to him, tail wagging. Balvin looks at him in disbelief, trying to lean over and make sure he's okay, but he's still tied to the chair. He doesn't know what to think. Enzo sits down next to him, and the video keeps playing.

Paz and Felicidad are on camera next, and they go through the same routine. They're not as obedient, and the unseen person has to try several times to get them to do their tricks. Eventually, they're all called off-screen, and the door opens again, releasing them in to sniff at Balvin, tails wagging furiously.

Balvin looks at his dogs, wondering what in the world is going on, when the TV cuts to another video. It's security camera footage, taken from outside his house a couple of weeks ago. He and Maluma are sitting outside talking to one another. Balvin groans as he realizes exactly where this is going.

On-screen, he can barely hear himself talk, but he remembers the conversation. "They don't make scary Halloween movies anymore," he said. They'd watched a disappointing Netflix Original, and he was feeling annoyed.

Maluma had laughed at him. "That's because you watched all the classics when you were a kid. You know, fifty years ago. Everything is scary when you're young."

Balvin watches himself elbow Maluma, and he regrets ever having said, "no, it's not that. I'm just immune to being scared now."

He was joking, of course, but Maluma had looked at him and said, "trust me, I bet I could scare you."

Balvin had rolled his eyes and said, sarcastically, "yeah, I trust you. I'm sure you could," and then he'd forgotten about the whole thing until Maluma had started setting up jump scares behind all the doors. Balvin didn't know Maluma had that many cardboard cutouts, but he got used to checking first before he opened the shower or the pantry or the garage. Then it was big, fake spiders on all the walls, and admittedly, that got Balvin a couple of times pretty good. But he'd assumed that was the end of it once Maluma managed to get him on camera, cursing at a high pitch and jumping backward a meter and a half.

The TV cuts to exactly that video, and Balvin turns towards the door as best he can. "Okay," he yells. "Good job. I thought I was going to die, and I just about pissed myself. You did it. You scared me. Come untie me now."

Maluma, Balvin is ninety-nine percent sure it's him even though he's wearing the same hockey mask as the kidnappers, comes through the door. He sits himself in Balvin's lap, and then Balvin is one hundred percent sure. Through the little circles cut out for his eyes, Balvin can see him smiling.

Maluma pushes the mask up onto his head, grinning at him.

"You are the master of Halloween. I'm very scared of you," Balvin says.

"Are you okay?" Maluma asks. He has a pair of scissors, and he undoes the ties around Balvin's wrists and ankles. "I told them not to be too rough."

Balvin rubs at his wrists. "Physically, fine. Mentally, a little scarred. Where are we?"

"Chan's house."

Balvin groans. "Is that who kidnapped me?"

Maluma nods. "Him and Kevin and a couple of other guys from the studio."

"What language were they speaking?"

Maluma cracks up. "I told him to try and speak Russian. He actually did it?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"You're really okay?" Maluma asks. "I mean," he pauses, looking down at Balvin with concern on his face.

Balvin starts talking before Maluma does. "I'm fine now. I thought I was going to die earlier. And I was worried about you."

Maluma frowns. "Why were you worried about me?"

"Because I thought they got you, too."

Maluma's eyes soften, and he brings his hand up to cover his mouth. "I feel like an ass," he says.

"You should," Balvin says. "But you organized all this for me, so I guess that means you love me. In your own fucked up way."

"I'm sorry. It kind of got away from me."

Balvin considers him a minute. "Just watch your back next year," he says eventually.

Maluma laughs, and then he moves closer, hands on Balvin's face. "I'm sorry," he says again.

"I'm sure you'll make it up to me," Balvin says, and then he lets Maluma lean in to kiss it all better.


End file.
